Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology

From Oceania to North America, indigenous peoples have created storytelling traditions of incredible depth and diversity. The term ‘indigenous storywork’ has come to encompass the sheer breadth of ways in which indigenous storytelling serves as a historical record, as a form of teaching and learning, and as an expression of indigenous culture and identity. But such traditions have too often been relegated to the realm of myth and legend, recorded as fragmented distortions, or erased altogether.

Decolonizing Research brings together indigenous researchers and activists from Canada, Australia and New Zealand to assert the unique value of indigenous storywork as a focus of research, and to develop methodologies that rectify the colonial attitudes inherent in much past and current scholarship. By bringing together their own indigenous perspectives, and by treating indigenous storywork on its own terms, the contributors illuminate valuable new avenues for research, and show how such reworked scholarship can contribute to the movement for indigenous rights and self-determination.

Foreword by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Introduction: decolonizing research: Indigenous storywork as methodology – Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, Jenny Bol Jun, Lee-Morgan and Jason De Santolo

PART I: INDIGENOUS STORYWORK IN CANADA – Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem
1 Following the song of k’aad ‘aww: using Indigenous storywork principles to guide ethical practices in research – Sara Florence Davidson
2 Indigenous visual storywork for Indigenous film aesthetics – Dorothy Christian
3 Le7 Q’7es te Stsptekwll re Secwépemc: our memories
long ago – Georgina Martin and Elder Jean William
4 Transformative education for Aboriginal mathematics learning: Indigenous storywork as methodology – Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, Cynthia Nicol, and Joanne Yovanovich

PART II: INDIGENOUS STORYWORK IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan
5 “He would not listen to a woman”: decolonizing gender through the power of purakau – Hayley Marama Cavino
6 Naming our names and telling our stories – Joeliee Seed-Pihama
7 Indigenous law/stories: an approach to working with Maori law – Carwyn Jones
8 Whanau storytelling as Indigenous pedagogy: tiakina te pa harakeke – Leonie Pihama, Donna Campbell, and Hineitimoana Greensill
9 Purakau from the inside-out: regenerating stories for cultural sustainability – Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan
Maori Glossary

PART III: INDIGENOUS STORYWORK IN AUSTRALIA – Jason De Santolo
10 Indigenous storytelling: decolonizing institutions and assertive self-determination: implications for legal practice – Larissa Behrendt
11 The limits of literary theory and the possibilities of storywork for Aboriginal literature in Australia – Evelyn Araluen Corr
12 Lilyology as a transformative framework for decolonizing ethical spaces within the academy – Nerida Blair
13 Putting the people back into the country – Victor Steffensen
14 The emergence of Yarnbar Jarngkurr from Indigenous homelands: a creative Indigenous methodology – Jason De Santolo