Linda Tuhiwai Smith

Linda Tuhiwai Smith (born 1950) is a Māori (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou) scholar whose work established Indigenous research methodologies as a distinct field. She is Professor at the University of Waikato.

Core ideas

• Research as a site of colonial power: Western research traditions have historically treated Indigenous peoples as objects of study rather than as knowledge holders. The word “research” itself carries harmful connotations in many Indigenous communities [@smith_DecolonizingMethodologies_2021].
• Indigenous research methodologies: research frameworks that center Indigenous epistemologies, accountability to community, and self-determination over the production of knowledge about Indigenous peoples for external audiences.
• Twenty-five Indigenous projects: Smith outlines a set of research practices — including claiming, testimonies, storytelling, celebrating survival, connecting, reading, writing, representing, gendering, envisioning, reframing, restoring, returning, democratizing, networking, naming, protecting, creating, negotiating, discovering, and sharing — that reorient research toward Indigenous purposes.

Notable works

• Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (1999; 3rd ed. 2021)

Related

• Leanne Simpson — also works on Indigenous knowledge systems, from Nishnaabeg perspective
• land-based education — an approach her work supports