Indigenous Sovereignty in the Colonized Spaces of Research: Accountability to Nonlanded Communities

• In Event: Accepting Responsibility and Navigating Research Tensions: A Relational Praxis

Abstract

As scholars who place the materiality of colonization central to our analysis (Tuck and
Yang, 2012), and recognize Indigenous sovereignty as primary to any effort for social
justice in the United States, we are interested in the ways we may reinscribe colonial
relationships in our attempt to build relational accountability (Wilson, 2008) as part of
our research. This paper explores research in the always already colonized spaces of academia with unlanded people in what is now the United States. In building research projects, Wilson (2008) reminds us to begin with community relationships. We trouble the idea of beginning with local power brokers who may privilege particular narratives. For example, we consider how working with formal stakeholders and community ‘gatekeepers’ to learn about the community context, understand questions “the community” would like explored, and gauge interest may
reinscribe dominant power relations within communities. We examine some of the
complexities of relational accountability by drawing from postcolonial thought (Spivak,
1999), Foucauldian accounts of power-knowledge (Foucault, 1998), and Indigenous
(Byrd, 2011) and Chicana theory (Delgado Bernal 2002; Villenas, 1996).
Being accountable to, and in relationship with participants and scholarly colleagues, are
powerful commitments to strike at the roots of a colonized research paradigm within the
academy. We have a responsibility to our participants to acknowledge the political impacts of our work and the collaborations we build, and the research that we share, and that which we learn and hold back for the safety of our participants and communities, agreeing with AERA that we are “citizens of the places where our scholarship is produced, disseminated and implemented.”
We ask how working with formal stakeholders and community “gatekeepers” to learn about the community context, understand questions “the community” would like explored, and gauging interest in a research-based relationship may reinscribe dominant power relations within local communities. We consider where our accountability lies—with students who participate in research or those who give access to participants? The authors grapple with Wilson’s (2008) ideas of community, collectivity and relationality via a critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010) of research memos, field notes and reflections, examining each author’s site selection, access, and gatekeepers, data verification and member checks.
Author 1 explores data drawn from an 18-month multi-sited ethnographic study with arrivant Muslim youth who were being surveilled by policing agencies. Data includes 40 hours of video and audio recordings, along with field notes from community meetings, social gatherings, and political events as well as data from interviews and focus groups with 20 youth. Author 2 discusses steps outside of IRB requirements to build then extend relationships and accountability with Indigenous high school students in a seven-month study with Indigenous youth, struggling against assimilationist ideas about citizenship. Data includes 20 hours of recordings from interviews and focus groups with students along with field notes.

Authors

• Arshad Imtiaz Ali, George Washington University

• Rachel Talbert, Teachers College, Columbia University