Understanding racial equity in research with Indigenous Peoples

Blog post by Heather Sauyaq Jean Gordon, USA

As an Indigenous scholar of race and ethnicity, I have struggled to find a place for who I am within the field. I studied race and ethnic studies as an undergraduate, but the curriculum focused on Black/African Americans, Asian Americans, White Americans and Latinos/Hispanics/Chicanos. I chose term paper topics and presentations that centered on Alaska Native (Indigneous) people to bring us into the conversation. My honors thesis on Arab American racism post-9/11 was another effort to highlight underrepresented populations.

In graduate school for sociology, I continued to focus on race and ethnicity. However, when I took the race and ethnicity preliminary exam in 2013, the readings again excluded Native American (Indigenous Peoples), ignoring colonization and assimilation practices, and how these interactions shaped racial discourse in the United States. So, when taking the exam, I included Indigenous race, assimilation and decolonization literature. I did not pass the exam, and was told three of the reasons were: 1) the author’s I cited doing Indigenous race and decolonial scholarship were not ‘race and ethnicity scholars’; 2) Indigenous Peoples are not a race or ethnicity in the US due to being less than two percent of the population; and 3) I was incorrect in saying the US government created blood quantum, as the Indigenous People did that.

At the time, I was taken aback and did not speak up, but I have felt compelled to address this for over a decade. First, Indigenous Peoples are the original inhabitants of the US and represent a racialized and ethnic minority. Their colonization, assimilation, white supremacy and racialization has profoundly shaped US practices and policies regarding race and ethnicity. Second, the US government has historically codified the status of ‘Indians’ through blood quantum in treaties dating back to the 1800s. Today, Indigenous people go to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to obtain cards that list their Degree of Indian Blood, underscoring the persistence of these colonial frameworks. Needless to say, I would never pass that prelim exam because excluding Indigenous Peoples from the discussion would erase my own identity, let alone US past and present. I left the programme in 2015 and moved to the cross-cultural studies programme at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to complete my PhD in Indigenous Studies.
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Scholars writing about Indigenous Peoples are race and ethnicity scholars. In 2021, with Indigenous pressure, the American Sociological Association added an Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations section, the purpose of the section stated as: ‘to advance scholarship to address erasure of Indigenous Peoples within the discipline and resist the settler colonialist foundations of sociology’.

When I began working in research, I faced further erasure of Indigenous Peoples. Terms like ‘ongoing colonization’ were removed from my writing, and racial equity was seen as the primary approach for working with minoritized people, addressing systemic racism. Yet, for Indigenous Peoples, this is only part of the picture.

In addition to systemic racism attacking the individual and group identity, wellbeing and lifeways, Indigenous Peoples endure codified racism through blood quantum, denial of political identities as members of sovereign Tribal Nations, and historical, cultural and inter/intra generational trauma resulting from colonization. As I explore in my Identities article, ‘Understanding racial equity in research with Indigenous Peoples: including anti-racism and decolonization approaches’, addressing equity in work with Indigenous Peoples requires both decolonizing and anti-racist principles.

The model in Figure 1 below illustrates essential principles and practices for fostering equitable and inclusive research environments. It demonstrates that  both anti-racist and decolonial frameworks are essential to an equitable approach when working with Indigenous Peoples.

Figure 1: Essential principles and practices for fostering equitable and inclusive research environments.

The Racial Equity Approach addresses systemic disparities through principles of justice, fairness, and inclusivity, while the Anti-Racist and Decolonial Approach emphasizes the need to confront colonization, trauma and sovereignty, advocating for healing and self-determination. Both aim to achieve equity but to apply an equity lens for Indigenous Peoples, it is essential to engage in both frameworks.

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Image credit: Author's own.

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Read the Identities article:
Gordon, Heather Sauyaq Jean & Around Him, Deana. (2024). Understanding racial equity in research with Indigenous Peoples: including anti-racism and decolonization approaches. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2024.2318975

Read further in Identities:

​Rethinking critical thinking, diversity and Indigenous awareness from a Blackfoot perspective

​Being anti-racist as ceremonial journey: from and within reflective learning stories

Indigenous identity, ‘authenticity’ and the structural violence of settler colonialism