INDIGENOUS SYNERGIES FOR DECOLONIZING ACTION RESEARCH
An Editorial
Jan Hare
University of British Columbia
It is a privilege to serve as a guest editor for the themed issue of the Canadian Journal of Action Research concerned with Action Research and Indigenous Ways of Knowing, especially at a time when the Indigenous education landscape undergoes dramatic changes as schools and communities respond to the significant priorities of decolonization, reconciliation, Indigenization, and Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty. Assisting in this large- scale societal reform is Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls-to- Action (2015), which confers responsibilities on social, educational, health, and justice institutions to address Canada’s colonial history that persists into the present. The 94 directives that make up the Calls-to-Action provide a framework to address structural inequalities that marginalize Indigenous people and to educate Canadian society on Indigenous people and reconciliation. Equally significant is the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which also has implications for Indigenous people’s quality of life on a global scale. UNDRIP sets out the individual and collective rights of Indigenous people, signalling that all relations with Indigenous people shall be based on the recognition of self-determination, requiring public and government institutions to promote and protect Indigenous rights.
Before I begin this introduction, I turn to Indigenous protocols to situate myself within a broader set of relations that informs the discussion that follows. I am an Anishinaabe-kwe scholar, educator, and administrator from the M’Chigeeng First Nation in northern Ontario.
I also have family roots in the Temagami First Nation, where my mother is from, only a few hours from M’Chigeeng. I live and work on the traditional and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleile-waututh Nations, where I have spent the last twenty years engaged in work that is committed to centering Indigenous knowledge systems in early childhood, K to 12 schooling, right through to post-secondary education. I have served as Director for the Indigenous Teacher Education Program – NITEP and Associate Dean for Indigenous Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. I currently hold a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Pedagogy and have
recently taken up the role of Dean of Education. Mobilizing Indigenous education priorities across a large Faculty of Education with a goal towards empowering Indigenous learners and communities in their own journeys towards resurgence and educational sovereignty, as well as responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls-to-Actions are the focus of my own work. As part of this reconciliation movement, I developed a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Reconciliation Through Indigenous Education, which is a free online professional learning opportunity for educators that has been taken by over 60,000 participants worldwide.
In this work, I have seen how policy developments aimed at reconciliation and advancing Indigenous people rights have begun to shift the power dynamics around which Indigenous-settler relationships are organized and structured, including the work of researchers and educators in higher education. Canada’s TRC (2015) has prompted curriculum reform across a broad range of disciplines and areas of study that is more inclusive of Indigenous knowledges, histories, and worldviews, new programs and initiatives within faculties and departments, symbolic and artistic representations on campus spaces, changing standards for professional programs, Indigenous faculty hires, administrative changes, recruitment of Indigenous students, and unprecedented engagement with local Indigenous communities and organizations as a means to confront systemic colonialism and racism within post-secondary education. These commitments aimed at structural and systemic change have created opportunities for the pursuance of research questions directed at transforming Indigenous-settler relations and how we might be accountable to Indigenous students and communities. How such questions engage Indigenous people’s priorities and are taken up and answered requires attending to Indigenous knowledges, approaches, and methods in the production and processes of inquiry.
There is a growing body of scholarship that is defining what Indigenous research is, critiquing the colonial theories and practices that underpin Western research (Kovach, 2009; Smith, 1999) and giving fulsome discussion to the ways Indigenous knowledge is practiced and understood in the context of Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and worldviews (Absolon, 2011; Archibald, 2008; Kovach 2009; McGregor, Restoule &
Johnston, 2018; Wilson, 2008). This invitation by the Canadian Journal of Action Research to me, as guest editor, and to contributors of this themed edition, allow us to contemplate the possibilities and limitations that Indigenous ways of knowing hold for guiding the particular research paradigm of action research. Inspiration for this themed issue comes from the Canadian Association of Action Research in Education (CAARE) workshop and keynote address held at the Canadian Society for the Studies in Education (CSSE) conference at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences gathering at the University of British Columbia in 2019. In my keynote address in May 2019, I called for an exchange on how Indigenous knowledges and perspectives can inform teaching and learning using an action research framework that had synergies with Indigenous ways of knowing. My intention was to build a robust framework for action research that attends to Indigenous priorities guided by Indigenous knowledges and voice to generate change in my own education inquiry.
Here, in this introduction, I want to expand on conceptual understandings of Indigenous research that I first introduced in that keynote in order to work towards a decolonizing action research approach. In doing so, I am not simply making refinements to action research, nor am I suggesting a distinctive Indigenous action research methodology.
Rather, this decolonizing approach is aimed demonstrating how Indigenous knowledges are critical components of inquiry that changes the way knowledge is gathered, analyzed, produced, and disseminated as it concerns the lives of Indigenous people (Smith, 1999).
Like Indigenous research, action research seeks to improve the social issues affecting the lives of people (Bogdan & Bilken, 1997). Both research methodologies engage in collaborative processes with others over a shared concern (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1998;
Smith, 1999). Likewise, they also utilize different methods and approaches.
For readers, I think it is important to distinguish between Indigenous research and Indigenous methodologies. Indigenous research is research done by, with, for, and about Indigenous peoples and encompasses a broad range of methods credible within Western research paradigms, including action research. But Indigenous research can also comprise Indigenous methodologies. Indigenous scholar, Margaret Kovach (2009), tells us that Indigenous methodologies are distinct in that they do not flow from Western philosophy;
they flow from tribal knowledges, which are “holistic [in] nature, focusing on the metaphysical and pragmatic, on language and place, and on values and relationship” (p.
57). Indigenous methodologies are grounded in Indigenous epistemologies, cosmologies, and axiologies in their design and implementation (Kovach, 2009; Wilson, 2008) and as such, are specific to people and place (Windchief & San Pedro, 2019). While Indigenous methodologies put tribal epistemologies at the center of research choices, there are still many other possibilities for decolonizing cotemporary explorations of Indigenous-focused inquiry by incorporating decolonizing theory in research choices that can still have a transformative effect, though remaining in line with critical research methodologies (Kovach, 2009).
I am aware that research is so implicated in colonization, that to consider whether there is a need to establish relationship between action research and Indigenous research practices is even necessary, can risk colonizing anew, despite even the best intentions (McGregor et al., 2018). However, in my own work with predominantly settler teacher educators and pre-service teachers, I have sought inspiration from both Indigenous research practices and action research methods as a means to understand and enhance teacher educators’
engagement with Indigenous knowledge frameworks in their practice with pre-service teachers. As teacher education programs undergo profound transformation in advancing reconciliation, an area of significant concern is teacher educator practice. There is much uncertainty for teacher educators engaging with Indigenous perspectives and knowledges as most are non-Indigenous, have rarely undertaken focused Indigenous studies as part of their own professional development, and have rarely seen an educator model how Indigenous perspectives, worldviews, and pedagogies can be appropriately taught (Ma Rhea, 2014). In this work, I have acknowledged alignments between action research and Indigenous research approaches given action research engages practitioners as research partners seeking change in educational conditions using systematic processes and techniques of research (Bradbury Huang, 2010). Equally significant, are the insights
developed for researcher and participants through a cycle of posing questions, gathering data, engaging in reflection, and then deciding on a course of action for enhancing professional practice.
To bring Indigenous research approaches in to a conversation with action research it must be made clear that this is not an “add Indigenous and stir” model that Kovach (2009, p.
156) cautions about when Indigenous knowledges operate in the space of Western approaches that have strong established philosophies and systems. Recognizing that action research and Indigenous research traditions are conceptualized and operate in different ways, my intention is to suggest ways in which Indigenous research is relevant to action research, not simply attempting to replace Western traditions with Indigenous ones. I take up four principles of Indigenous knowledge systems and worldviews that can create robust action research approaches in their application to Indigenous education and Indigenous people’s priorities. These include relationality, humility, storytelling, and reciprocity. Other researchers and educators, including those in this edition, have described how to put principles of decolonizing methodologies in to action research practices (Bressette, 2008;
Peltier, 2018; Stagg Peterson et al., 2016; Wilson et al., 2020). The principles I propose in this introduction offer alternative views of how action research can be guided by different sensibilities that can respectfully engage Indigenous people and perspectives and be accountable to Indigenous communities.
Relationality provides the epistemological scaffolding necessary for decolonizing action research approaches (Gerlach, 2018). For Cree scholar, Shawn Wilson (2008), relationality is the defining feature of Indigenous research and methodologies. Knowledge is generated and understood in the context of relationships. From his perspective, relationship is defined by space and reducing proximity of space strengthens relationship. Relationality in the Indigenous paradigm then situates the researcher in close proximity to the experience under exploration. He uses relational accountability to describe how methodology based in a community context is relational and that it needs to demonstrate respect, reciprocity, and responsibility to be accountable as it is put in to action. Being accountable to your relations means that “the knowledge that the researcher interprets must be respectful of and help to build the relationships that have been established through the process of finding out information” (Wilson, 2008, p. 77).
While Western research approaches take issue with this kind of relationality because of potential bias, action researchers reject the neutrality of the researcher, especially since action researchers do not merely play a technical role but act as facilitators in making or assisting with social change (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005). Given action research takes place among a network of academics, professional educators, and community members, Wilson’s (2008) relational accountability assumes a research strategy that is based on collaboration and developing relationships on multiple levels, and where the researcher works with participants to generate, interpret, and share knowledge. This may even include taking time to establish a relationship with the data and respecting expectations of participants for how data, as stories, knowledge, and information is used and contextualized in the course of planning, action, or knowledge dissemination (Barlo et al.,
2021). Wilson poses some helpful questions that those engaging in action research might consider as they seek to decolonize their methods and create stronger relations:
• How can I relate respectfully to other participants involved in this research so that together we can form a stronger relationship with the idea we share?
• What is my role as a researcher in this relationship, and what are my responsibilities?
• What am I contributing or giving back to the relationship? Is the sharing, growth and learning that is taking place reciprocal? (Wilson, 2008, p. 77)
I draw from my own Anishinaabe teachings to explain the role of humility in action research. Among the Anishinaabe, there are fundamental teachings about how to live in this world. These seven teachings help us to live mino-bimaadisiwin (a good Life) and guide our actions towards one another, which also includes Indigenous research (Debassige, 2010). Humility is among the seven teachings of the Anishinaabe and emphasizes one is part of something greater giving rise to mutuality, equality, and modesty. It requires knowing what we do not know and accepting our limitations. In doing so, we are open to guidance and learning from others. Cora Webber-Pillax (1999) tells us that the spirit of Indigenous research is found in compassion, stillness, and humility. “The environment for Indigenous research is found where the spirit of the researcher finds these qualities” (p.
44). She suggests researchers check their heart (intentions) in order to be directed by humility in research. This occurs through self-awareness and self-reflection on the part of the researcher. It may then require researchers to untangle their investments in projects, which opens them up to exploring other worldviews.
Reflecting on my own practices in an action research project where I was collaborating with two other teacher educators to investigate and strengthen our own teaching practices in an Indigenous education course, I am reminded of the role humility played in assisting each of us to see new possibilities for classroom teaching. Our methodology began with peer observation, where two instructors would simultaneously observe the third instructor teach a lesson. We used a segmented timed running record recording notes at five-minute intervals. Following the observation, all three instructors would gather for a reflective conversation to discuss the lesson from our different vantage points, resulting in three reflective conversations. We could ask questions and plan for renewed practices. We then returned to our teaching to implement and assess what we learned from each other. To conclude, we came back together to discuss the changes in our practices and the impacts on teaching and learning.
Aspects of this action research design necessitated humility by all three of us. It involved risk-taking to demonstrate our practices for each other, and I recognize the courage it took for each of my colleagues to expose their approaches through a performance of teaching, particularly as we came with different identity positions and levels of teaching experience.
Our non-Indigenous colleague, whose expertise was in another discipline, was conscious of this in the research. This was observed in a comment from her about how, as Indigenous instructors, we had a body of knowledge and experience that she just did not have in the
classroom. She felt this impacted on how students responded to her as a teacher educator.
As an Indigenous researcher and participant of this collaborative inquiry, I had to constantly be aware of the difference in experience in teaching Indigenous education coursework between myself and my other colleagues. This reflexivity as part of my interactions with the group is an important part of action research, but an important aspect of humility as well.
It was through our conversations together that personal vulnerabilities were revealed and humility was practiced. For me as both researcher and participant, it was important to create a critical and yet, safe space to talk about our observations and ask questions of each other’s practice. This meant that rather than provide solutions, I engaged in personal stories and asked questions about their experiences that might lead them to their own answers, despite their queries as to what I might do as a more seasoned instructor or my role as researcher being seen as distinct. My questions focused on asking them to tell me more about an experience concerning a challenge or success in their teaching reflection or what they might try differently in light of what they observed in other’s teaching.
Researchers might think of this as a form of probing to create a qualitative discussion. But for me, it is a principle of non-interference, which is understood within Indigenous contexts that fosters independence and upholds relationships by discouraging directives aimed at controlling behaviours. It is intended to promote self-reliance, encouraging people to make their own decisions. Specific direction is not given. Instead, choices come from experiences where we are made vulnerable. I could really appreciate that “It is our own vulnerabilities that connect us and the teachings of the sacred circle that tells us that it is our connections that keep us strong. In Indigenous research the vulnerable is honorable” (Fast & Kovach, 2019, p. 26).
I turn to another feature of Indigenous research that moves action research towards a decolonizing approach. Storytelling is a practice within Indigenous traditions that sustains communities, validates experiences, and nurtures relationships (Iseke, 2013). It is a method that has been used to teach, share knowledge across the generations, and organize and make meaning of the world and how to live in it (Archibald, 2008). Kovach (2009) points out that sharing stories “is a method of gathering knowledge based on oral tradition congruent with an Indigenous paradigm. It involved a dialogic participation that holds a deep purpose of sharing story as a means to assist other. It is relational to the core” (p. 42).
Explaining the ontological difference in narrative practices of Western and Indigenous storytelling forms, Caxaj (2015) takes issue with the particular structures, strategies, and techniques of Western traditions that focus on plot and temporality. Whereas, Indigenous storytelling approaches are rooted in the local and are cyclical and meaning is constructed through relationship. I consider Indigenous storytelling to be another means in which Indigenous teachings and epistemologies can uniquely guide action research activities, especially as Indigenous storied methodologies can develop rich, locally based insights that are culturally responsive to Indigenous priorities aimed at transformation and change (Caxaj, 2015).
Space for Indigenous storytelling can be created within action research approaches, especially as it engages researcher and participants in dialogue, conversation, or reflection
to guide the research. “While telling our stories may, at times, feel messy, the beauty of this act is that it gives pause as the researcher and invites a shared story to come through. It reminds us, as researchers, to show the same respect and regard to the story of the other as we would hope our own story will be treated” (Fast & Kovach, 2019, p. 26). What I appreciate about Indigenous narrative traditions in action research is that it is less about responding directly to research questions and more about sharing stories with each other in relationship to questions being considered among a collaborative group (Kovach, 2009).
Exchanges build on one another’s stories, becoming layered, where participants react to one another’s sharing (Anderson et al., 2014). Reflection and opportunities for change result from experiences and viewpoints shared in the relationship. And once in relationship, a level of trust established (McGregor et al., 2018). This approach to storytelling may seem counter-intuitive to Western research traditions, where gathering forms of evidence is what matters in the study and to the researcher.
Finally, I consider the role of reciprocity in action research. Given action research is predicated on research that is designed to change the lives of those taking part, reciprocity seems obvious. However, if we consider Indigenous theories of reciprocity, we can reflect on how these understandings can (re)shape methodological design. McGregor and Marker (2018) describe different dimensions of Indigenous reciprocity, where reciprocity is largely concerned with giving back with the goals of assisting others participating in and impacted by the research, sharing knowledge learned through research, or as a recognition of on-going commitments to participants and communities. These authors take issue with reciprocity being limited to participation in research as a fixed transaction of mutual benefit between researcher and participants or where contractual arrangements are made with communities regarding benefits of the research. Instead, these scholars draw form the scholarship of Trainor and Bouchard (2013) to promote Indigenous reciprocity as a stance taken throughout the research journey, adapted to fit local contexts. McGregor and Marker summarize four dimensions of stance:
1) recognizing relationships that make research possible at a particular time and place through offering gifts that have meaning or purpose; 2) participating in local ways of teaching, circulating or sharing knowledge, and preparing oneself accordingly; 3) enacting responsibility toward others through continuous practices of openness, recognition and negotiation without closure; and 4) pursuing a stance of reciprocity even while maintaining an awareness of its tenuousness… (p. 325).
Lessons learned from Indigenous reciprocity for action research can be operationalized in the way research and participants come together towards a common goal and collective approach in both these paradigms. Fast and Kovach (2019) introduce us to an ethic of reciprocity, which is about what we share about ourselves in the context of research. For those engaged in dialogue, conversation, and mobilizing action, this ethic of reciprocity is represented in the act of coming together to nurture a common or shared wisdom. They tell us that “each individual in the group (including self) has a responsibility to act as catalyst for others to find and reveal their truth. This implies responsibility to the group” (p. 26).
We can be excited about the articles brought together in this themed edition of the Canadian Journal of Action Research, especially as they are drawn from Indigenous engagements around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Canada. The authors of this collection have committed themselves to meaningful and respectful research derived from Indigenous knowledges, worldviews, and participation as means to create robust action research approaches that attend to Indigenous priorities and perspectives. As such, they reveal decolonizing practices for action research that resonate and extend from the principles and approaches that I have introduced in this introduction.
We see the application of these principles, along with others that the authors introduce from their work in education and community contexts and through different research approaches that emphasize sharing and learning from Indigenous knowledge and people.
From my vantage point, we are clearly in need of research approaches that are accountable to not only Indigenous people and communities, but to the land and our ancestral and non- human relations. Several of the authors gesture towards these metaphysical relations. At the heart of their writings is the desire for transformation and change that recognizes a broader set of relationships and responsibilities, helping us to navigate the complexities and exhaust the possibilities for decolonizing Indigenous inquiries as settler and Indigenous researchers.
In the first two articles, researchers Briones and Ramos and Benson share their stories of engagements with Indigenous peoples to reveal processes for working collaboratively that were personally and professional transformative. Their reflections tackle different disciplinary traditions to grapple with what constitutes decolonizing practices. By sharing their experiences of how Indigenous knowledge is acquired and interpreted, these researchers develop a deeper understanding of cross-cultural collaboration based on Indigenous frameworks. Relationship, listening, and personal contemplation configure strongly in shaping action-oriented methodologies in their design and c-constructing of knowledge.
In the first article, anthropologists, Claudia Briones and Ana Margarita Ramos, are joined by two Mapuche community members from Chile, an Elder and a political leader, who together discuss the practice of talking together—ngütramkan—and the centrality of conversation to the Mapuche philosophy of knowledge. They soon come to see the value of engaging in ngütramkawün, a dialogue in which they can all analyze a topic together by adding the knowledge they each have on the matter of learning and making meaning from Indigenous knowledge. Their interactions reveal three approaches for collaboration focusing on the way conversations are mediated, practiced, and understood in Mupache intellectual traditions. Using transcripts from their conversations, they critique anthropology’s research approaches and disclose the more nuanced ways Indigenous knowledges operate within inquiry. For Briones and Ramos, they put their own actions in anthropological research under scrutiny by systematically examining their exchanges and relationships with Mupache knowledge holders to consider new practices that have relevance for action researchers.
Continuing the focus on cross cultural engagement that promotes change in the practices of the researcher, and to practices of action research, is the next article by Tracey M. Benson.
This author shares a more personal journey to explore themes related to Indigenous knowledges and how to engage ethically with Indigenous people. Through personal stories of co-constructing arts-based projects, Benson highlights collaborative approaches that empower Indigenous artists, organizations, and participants, as well as researcher, in representation, activism, and knowledge mobilization. We see the importance that self- reflection and attention to protocols play in processes of action research.
The next two articles represent action research projects taking place in community-based settings. Chay Brown, an Australian researcher, uses a strengths-based approach to engage Aboriginal community members living in Town Camps in Mparntwe/Alice Springs to identify locations and generate solutions that would improve their safety and well-being.
Town Camps, being where Aboriginal people in Australia settled as a result of colonial encroachment, are strong communities, but with limited services and poor social infrastructure resulting in safety challenges for inhabitants. Brown collaborates with community partners to conduct a participatory safety mapping action research project that centered the voice of Aboriginal people in the Town Camps and drew from their knowledge and experiences to create an evidence base for social change in safety sites and services.
Each participant was asked to label or discuss safe places on an individual map of their Town Camp and follow up with drawings that depicted what safety would look like to the participant. What we can appreciate in this article is the way participatory action research is strengthened through seven key principles that are critical components of an Indigenous methodology that serves to empower Indigenous people.
Through iterative cycles of questioning, reflection, and action, Cher Hill, Rick Bailey, Cheryl Power, and Nicole McKenzie develop a deeper understanding of the how to bring together diverse communities with the goal of educating citizens about environmental conditions impacting Indigenous lands and livelihoods and to mobilize others to take action through restoration and stewardship activities. Concerned with environmental justice and the more-than-human relations, these authors take up a collaborative research project that involves them in sharing stories, recounting experiences, and asking questions about environmental conditions impacting on a local watershed in Western Canada and then mobilizing students and community to take part in practices aimed at the restoration and protection of lands and waterways that form the habitat of salmon and other fish species. An important dimension of this collaborative action research is that it is grounded in relational responsibility (Wilson, 2008) with the local q̓ıćəy̓ (Katzie) and q̓wa:n̓ƛqən̓
(Kwantlen) First Nations and inviting Elders, knowledge keepers, and community members to help researchers and students learn about the decline of the Salmon through history, stories, and memories embedded in the land- and place-based knowledge. Fortunate for the readers, these authors establish four guide posts to guide the work of other action researchers taking up environmental justice matters. These guide posts are built on the themes of relationships, reconciliation, acknowledging Indigenous rights, and empowering community change.
Post-secondary education is the site for action research in the final two articles of this edition. Seeking to build an Indigenous quality assurance system for post-secondary institutions founded on Indigenous ways of knowing, Lana Ray brings together action
research with institutional ethnography to identify standards that reflect Anishinaabe, Mushkegowuk, and Métis peoples’ visions and expectations for six colleges located in northern, Ontario, Canada. Though Ray uses action research and participatory action research interchangeably to signal meaningful collaboration towards a common goal of transformation, the author leads readers to an Indigenous Participatory Action Research (IPAR) design that is informed by processes of planning, acting, observing and reflecting that privileges Indigenous knowledge systems while interrogating colonial structures and practices. Thirty-nine participants, consisting of Indigenous community representatives and leaders, Indigenous students, and Indigenous and settler faculty, take part in an institution mapping activity to identify Indigenous elements that would support quality assurance. Applied to this part of the project was a Two-Eyed Seeing model, envisioned by Mi’kmaw Elder, Albert Marshall, and utilized in health, science, and educational contexts.
Through co-learning, knowledge scrutiny, knowledge validation, and knowledge gardening, both Indigenous and Western knowledge could be complemented to build quality assurance practices and frameworks that were reflective of Indigenous worldviews, cultures, and aspirations.
Concluding the collection of articles are settler teacher-practitioners Laryssa Gorecki and Carol Doyle-Jones, who teach Indigenous education content in their coursework in a teacher education program in southern Ontario, Canada. In order to deepen teacher candidates’ engagement with Indigenous histories and worldviews, Gorecki and Doyle- Jones collaborate with Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, and community members to help teacher candidates gain experience and confidence to integrate Indigenous knowledges and practices in to their own classroom settings. Working from the principles of reciprocal relationships (McGregor & Marker, 2018) and relational accountability (Wilson, 2008) these teacher practitioners design an action research project that inquires in to what contributes to change in practices of teacher candidates following their participation in Indigenous education workshops and speaking events. There is much to learn from the way Gorecki and Doyle-Jones position themselves as co-learners in building meaningful relationships with the local Indigenous community so that they can construct a curriculum rich in Indigenous traditions, centering of Indigenous knowledges, and organized around the perspectives and experiences of Indigenous people. Though their findings suggest that students develop more confidence and knowledge by learning in relationship with Indigenous people, there was still some hesitancy in making curricular applications through relational and decolonizing pedagogies of storytelling, experiential learning, and Indigenous engagement. Their action research approach emphasizing Indigenous relationships and collaborations is one that invites epistemological pluralism;
and one that provokes change.
Having reflected on the writings of the authors contributing to the journal, I revisit McGregor and Marker’s (2018) use of Trainor and Bouchard’s (2013) notion of stance, which focus on broader notions of exchange and reciprocity for Indigenous research. I suggest these researchers, educators, practitioners, research participants, and collaborators, who have contemplated and taken up decolonizing modes of action research have taken a stance that gestures towards the recognition of Indigenous ways of knowing and Indigenous reclamation of research. Action research on its own concerning Indigenous
people and priorities is not sufficient, especially as action research may very well preserve Eurocentric approaches and reproduce colonial ideologies that only serve to harm Indigenous people and their lands. Though the authors of these writings utilize Indigenous knowledges and worldviews in different ways in their action research projects, they are deliberate in their stance that action research be shaped by decolonizing theory and Indigenous approaches to produce not only much needed change in classrooms, workplaces, and communities, but in their research practices as well.
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