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Indigenous Research and Ethics

a guide to reading, researching, and studying topics related to Indigenous Peoples and Communities

Finding Indigenous Voices

How do I find Indigenous voices?

"Indigenizing curriculum and research can start with reading and citing Indigenous voices. When the same authors and titles are cited in papers it reinforces an echo chamber, and who is deemed to have authority. It’s important to critically examine where you are getting your information, and whose voices aren’t included. This can be a challenging practice, because how can you tell if an author is Indigenous? 

It is also important to define what is meant by Indigenous scholar and scholarly output. Indigenous scholarly output may often be found in peer reviewed journals, however there are concerns about bias within the peer review system. Within Indigenous communities, Indigenous scholars/researchers/knowledge keepers/Elders do not have to be credentialed by or affiliated with the academy in order to be regarded as citable experts, though many are. It may be beneficial to your work to look beyond academic publishing to find Indigenous perspectives and/or knowledge on your topic. "

(Edwards, n.d)

Searching for Indigenous authors, scholars, or publishers

  • ​​​​Read the author information in database records and journal articles to learn more about the author. If you can’t find much information about the author, go outside the source and search for university profile pages, blogs, social media, and other online projects the author may be involved in. Don't make assumptions about a scholar's background based on name, appearance, etc., but pay attention to how they self-identify.
  • Change the order of your search results in databases and search engines. “Relevance" is often the default setting for displaying search results, but you can change it to “Date Newest” to find the most current research available.
  • Consider geography/location in your searching.
  • Find out where scholars in your field share ideas less formally (such as blogs, Twitter, YouTube etc.), to find conversations happening outside of traditional forms of scholarly communication.
  • Check faculty pages of post-secondary institutions in your discipline to find Indigenous scholars in your field, and their bibliographies.
  • Look for Indigenous publishers or journals that cover Indigenous research. 
  • Explore new sources of news. For example, Ethnic News Watch can be used to find publications featuring Indigenous voices. (See the additional Indigenous News Sources below.).
  • Explore professional association conference programs, committee lists, and membership rosters to identify scholars and their interests. Some databases even have a filter that allows you to look at conference papers.
  • Explore Open Education Resources (OER), like Open BC Campus, for scholarly material that functions outside of traditional publishing houses
  • Talk with your professors about how they diversify their reading and reference lists and who they think are exciting new voices in the field.
  • Found an author and/or article that you are interested in? Who have they cited? You can use search strategies like reviewing the cited references and using a database's "cited by" tool, to find related content. 

Indigenous News Sources

coming soon...

Attribution and Sources

Content on this page adapted with permission. 

Edwards, A. (n.d.). Finding Indigenous voices: Approaches for discovering Indigenous scholars and authors. SFU library. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/academic-integrity/indigenous-initiatives/icrc/indigenous-voices

Multiply marginalized & underrepresented scholars: MMU scholarship. Retrieved June 21, 2022, from https://libguides.usu.edu/mmuscholars/mmuscholarship