Indigenous Knowledge Research

• To fulfil the requirements of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge communities, research undertaken by or with Indigenous people under the auspices of WINHEC will be guided by the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) Research Standards.
  The Standards will enable Indigenous students and by extension, their communities:

  
  

• The primacy and validity of Indigenous knowledge, as it is defined and articulated locally, is a fundamental requirement in all research activities.
• Important is the protection of sacred sites, secret and sacred knowledge and other artefacts.
• Such knowledge authority, cultural responsibility and the scholarship of Elders and Knowledgeable others is therefore central within the local knowledge position and all activities including research is committed to research activities which respect local knowledge, has relevance to the people, is reliable and works reciprocally drawing from, gathering and documenting information and knowledge to generate solutions and recommendations locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, with and by Indigenous peoples while honouring, affirming and advancing knowledge through deep and complex scholarship.
• As Porsanger, J. (2010) argues: Research protocols for each research project on Indigenous issues must be negotiated with Indigenous and local communities with regard to the following key issues: Respect, Reciprocity, Reliability, and Relevance Researchers from within Indigenous societies or external to same must therefore honour their knowledge and skills in order to work respectfully and collaboratively with Indigenous knowledge and within the relationships of all.
• Elders and Knowledgeable others can also be the researcher, the advisors or the focus of research and they too are required to maintain deep obligations to their knowledge and the balance of all within the environment as they engage within the research.

 WINHEC Research Standards

WINU Ethical Research Form