Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts

Kovach M. Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2009;201 pp.

Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts articulates the theoretical and epistemological distinctiveness of Indigenous methodologies and proposes approaches to research that centre Indigenous ways of knowing. It does so through a series of nine chapters that contribute thoughtful commentary on many existential questions posed within Indigenous scholarship, including: allied approaches to non-Indigenous research, the centering of cultural protocols, story-telling as method, the role of one's subjective interpretation in the creation of knowledge, and how doing research 'in a good way' means not only asking the 'right' questions, or even learning how to ask them properly, but truly reflecting on who we are when we do the asking. The book integrates conversations between the author and six Indigenous scholars regarding the concepts covered in the book. This text is translated from the author's doctoral dissertation.

Margaret Kovach extends the ground-breaking conversation begun by Linda Tuhiwai Smith's (1999) text Decolonizing Methodologies. Kovach argues that Indigenous scholars must continue to use a decolonizing lens in conjunction with Indigenous epistemologies. In doing so, a perplexing but pervasive contradiction inherent within conventional academic scholarship is exposed. That is, a strong resistance to epistemological shifts that would lead to the production of new knowledge - despite the conviction that new knowledge is, ultimately, what academic scholarship is all about. Kovach argues that Indigenous scholars must remember that our greatest sites of struggle always take place at the level of epistemology, for it is at this level that our ideologies are formulated into assumptions, and our assumptions ultimately inform the questions that we ask in our research.

This is an invaluable text for Indigenous scholars and allies of all research disciplines, including those within the realm of health research. It is a testament to the burgeoning of possibilities for Indigenous scholarship within Canada and should be a 'back-pocket' text for those engaged in Indigenous research.

[Author Affiliation]

Debbie Martin, PhD, MA, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Promotion, Faculty of Health Professions, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS