Research Objectives and Themes
Research Themes
In the Decolonizing Settler States project, we explored the following research questions related to each theme:
Law and Constitutions: How are/are not laws and constitutions in various countries decolonizing, in ways that recognize and respect Indigenous human rights? How is UNDRIP being mobilized in court cases, and how are courts citing it? How are constitutions shifting or constitutional change advocated for by Indigenous peoples in various countries of the Global North? What are the successes and challenges?
Politics, Policy and Practice: How can we know if Indigenous rights are being respected? What tools can be employed to measure and monitor state compliance with existing international standards, such as UNDRIP? What are the best means of facilitating cooperation between governments at all levels, as well as Indigenous communities and organizations, to implement policies to ensure strong self-determining futures for Indigenous peoples? What can be done to encourage states to abide by their international commitments? Why is implementation happening so slowly, especially in democratic societies of the Global North, and can systemic blockages be resolved with better data, reporting, monitoring, and education?
Methodology and Dissemination: By directly engaging with Indigenous communities in Canada and during UN gatherings, what can we learn about Indigenous peoples’ needs for transnational and cross-sectional data and good practices case studies? What can we learn about the tools and educative resources that Indigenous peoples need? How can we pool our resources to better diffuse expertise gained in one geographic area or sector to others? By engaging with both grass-roots Indigenous communities and organizations who are active at the global level, what enhancements can we offer to the Indigenous methodologies literatures?
Project Objectives
This partnership aims to demystify the systemic blockages that prevent settler colonial states in the Global North from decolonizing, defined as implementing the full body of Indigenous human rights as articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (“the UN Declaration”) and other human rights law, as well as to share knowledge both trans-nationally and across sectors on how Indigenous peoples are resolving these blockages.
Our objectives are:
To build and deepen an international network of scholars, academic institutions, Indigenous organizations and human rights NGOs focusing on Indigenous human rights implementation in settler colonial states of the Global North by enhancing knowledge sharing opportunities;
To deploy Indigenous community-based research methods in three Indigenous communities in geographically diverse regions of Canada as well as at Indigenous events at the United Nations in order to learn directly from Indigenous peoples what research and educative tools and international good practice case studies they need in their own decolonization work, an effort which will also help produce enhancements to the academic literature in Indigenous methodologies;
To collaboratively develop and disseminate, intra- and trans-nationally, a set of pilot research projects producing accessible tools and databases, in three domains of expertise critical to decolonization efforts in the Global North: a) Law and Constitutions, b) Politics, Policy and Practice, and c) Methodologies and Dissemination, and build an online portal that collects, houses and distributes the collected data on court decisions, law, policy and other measures of Indigenous human rights implementation in forms that are accessible to Indigenous peoples and the general public;
To enhance training and research capacity amongst Indigenous scholars and organizations including nurturing the next generation of Indigenous researchers and practitioners; and
To build foundations for a larger Partnership Grant application to investigate and improve Indigenous human rights implementation research and knowledge exchange in settler colonial states of the Global North, using a framework that addresses both Connection and Insight approaches.