Community-based (rooted) research for regeneration: understanding benefits, barriers, and resources for Indigenous education and research

Abstract

For researchers and educators working to engage Indigenous knowledges, colonial legacies, including assimilation-driven education curriculum, form challenging and complex pathways to navigate. To address such legacies and support Indigenous education efforts, we developed a participatory research model exploring benefits, barriers, and resources for engaging Indigenous knowledges in science education and research. This article details methods and findings from an inter-island knowledge exchange describing the experiences of seven Indigenous scholars and practitioners working in the Caribbean. We drew from Indigenous research methodologies, participatory action research, and constructivist grounded theory. Our research findings describe how individual experiences weave into a larger collective, intergenerational story of survival, adaptation, resilience, and regeneration. Findings from this study deepen understandings regarding how underlying socio-political challenges manifest at different scales of space and time, from immediate to intergenerational, and practitioner-identified resources to overcome them, such as Indigenous language, community action, and creating support systems.