Research Speaker Series - Fall 2024
Session 3: Using the 5Rs as an Indigenous Research Framework
November 26, 2024

Presenter: Dr. Jean-Paul Restoule
Host: Gwen Nguyen

Let’s get back to some basics! In discussing the utility of a 5Rs framework for engaging in Indigenous research, it is helpful to remind ourselves what is meant by research, Indigenous research, decolonizing research, and how the 5Rs might help us achieve these goals.  

By situating self in relation to spirit, family, community, and nation, Anishinaabe researcher, Jean-Paul Restoule, reminds us that we are known in relation and what can be known is also approached through relationship. In Indigenous research, the process is as important, or more important, than the product or outcome. Therefore, it is important to be conscious of how we come to know.  

Based on Verna Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt’s description of the 4Rs needed for Indigenous success in higher education, this research approach prioritizes respect, responsibility, relevance, and reciprocity as ways to ensure our research is responsive to Indigenous communities.  

In sharing an approach that includes the 4Rs plus relationship as a critical fifth ‘R’, Restoule will also touch on some other key Rs like reverence, refusal, and responsiveness.  

In Anishinaabe approaches, underlying values like wisdom, love, respect, honesty, bravery, humility, and truth are helpful in grounding the researcher. Restoule will touch on the importance of connecting to underpinning local values in conducting Indigenous research as well as implications for Indigenist vs. Indigenous research. 

Attachments: Transcript (PDF, Word), Slides (PDF)

Note: If you notice an error in the closed-captions (or transcript file), please email support@bccampus.ca with details of the error, the time stamp, and your suggested correction, if any.