Strengthening Our Voices: Urban-dwelling Aboriginal people and research protocols

Abstract

The study of Indigenous peoples and their cultures has in the past raised serious ethical questions within the academic sphere as well as in the Aboriginal community. This paper examines culturally appropriate and sensitive research ethics within urban Aboriginal communities in Canada, through the lens of the research guideline of Ownership, Control, Access and Possession, and the more recent Utility, Self-Voicing, Access and Inter-relationality framework created by the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres. Ethically sound research by and for Aboriginal peoples continues to advance, and this paper's findings underscore the ability of urban Indigenous communities to create, gather and interpret their own data using frameworks that recognize their skill and autonomy.