Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

Citation

Smith, L. T. (2021). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (3rd ed.). Zed Books.

Chapter Summary

Introduction to the Third Edition, Foreword and Introduction

The third edition opens with a new introduction that is co-written and includes contributions from Indigenous scholars on why the book still matters for current research. The author's own Introduction then states the central problem: for colonized peoples the word "research" is bound up with European colonialism, and academic research has been part of imperialism's history.

Chapter 1: Imperialism, History, Writing and Theory

The opening chapter links imperialism and colonialism to the way history is written and theory is made. It shows how Western accounts of the past and of knowledge pushed Indigenous perspectives to the margins, which sets up the rest of the book.

Chapter 2: Research through Imperial Eyes

This chapter looks at how colonial ideas shaped the practice of research and the reading of its results. The publisher's description highlights ideas such as "discovery" and "claiming", through which imperialism is built into disciplines of knowledge as "regimes of truth".

Chapter 3: Colonizing Knowledges

Here the argument moves from research practice to knowledge itself: how Western ways of knowing came to overshadow Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and what that means for the disciplines that carry them.

Chapter 4: Research Adventures on Indigenous Land

The focus turns to the ethics and power relations of researching in Indigenous settings, the situations in which communities meet outside researchers.

Chapter 5: Notes from Down Under

A regional chapter on research and Indigenous peoples in Australia and New Zealand, which prepares the ground for the Māori material later in the book.

Chapter 6: The Indigenous Peoples' Project: Setting a New Agenda

Smith moves from critique to proposal, describing the wider Indigenous peoples' movement and the place of research within an agenda that Indigenous communities set for themselves.

Chapter 7: Articulating an Indigenous Research Agenda

The chapter develops that agenda into a proactive programme of research serving Indigenous needs and aspirations, and explains what holding such an agenda together involves.

Chapter 8: Twenty-Five Indigenous Projects

A practical chapter that presents twenty-five Indigenous projects as examples of work that fits the agenda. The contents also list a separate section titled Twenty Further Indigenous Projects, which extends the same idea.

Chapter 9: Responding to the Imperatives of an Indigenous Agenda: A Case Study of Māori

A focused case study of how Māori in New Zealand have approached research in their own communities.

Chapter 10: Towards Developing Indigenous Methodologies: Kaupapa Māori Research

The chapter presents Kaupapa Māori research as a worked example of an Indigenous methodology: research based on Māori philosophy and practice that puts Māori interests first.

Chapter 11: Choosing the Margins: The Role of Research in Indigenous Struggles for Social Justice

Research is treated as a tool for advocacy and change within Indigenous struggles for social justice, with the margin approached as a position that can be chosen deliberately.

Chapter 12: Getting the Story Right, Telling the Story Well: Indigenous Activism, Indigenous Research

The final numbered chapter considers narrative and storytelling, and links Indigenous activism to Indigenous research. A closing personal reflection, the further list of projects and a selection of poems complete the volume.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Chapters 1–3: Imperialism, research and knowledge

• Research as part of imperialism: academic research took part in colonial expansion, which is why many colonized people associate the word with a painful memory.
• Regimes of truth: disciplines of knowledge carry imperial assumptions, expressed in ideas such as "discovery" and "claiming".
• Western and Indigenous ways of knowing: Western knowledge claimed priority over Indigenous ways of knowing and being.

Chapters 4–5: Research on Indigenous land

• Ethics and power in the field: the conduct of outside researchers in Indigenous communities is treated as a question of power as well as procedure.

Chapters 6–8: A new agenda

• Indigenous research agenda: research priorities set by Indigenous peoples and aimed at their needs and aspirations.
• Indigenous projects: the book offers concrete projects as a way to put the agenda into practice.

Chapters 9–10: Māori research

• Kaupapa Māori research: research rooted in Māori philosophy and practice, controlled by Māori and serving Māori interests, offered as a model for other Indigenous methodologies.

Chapters 11–12: Research, struggle and story

• Research and social justice: research used deliberately in Indigenous struggles.
• Storytelling: narrative as both method and activism.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clear account of why the question matters. The book starts from the claim that "research" is a loaded word for colonized peoples and ties this to the way disciplines are built, so a reader learns why method is a political question and not only a technical one.
• Critique followed by proposal. Chapters 1–5 examine imperial research and knowledge, and chapters 6–12 turn to an agenda, a set of projects, a Māori case study and Kaupapa Māori research. Readers get a path from analysis to practice within one volume.
• A worked example. The Māori chapters show what an Indigenous methodology looks like when it is developed and applied, rather than leaving it as a principle.
• The third edition adds voices. The new co-written introduction brings in Indigenous scholars on the book's continued relevance, and the volume includes poetry alongside the scholarly chapters.

Limitations

• Regional weight. The concrete material leans on Aotearoa New Zealand, with Australia in Chapter 5 and the Māori case study and Kaupapa Māori research in Chapters 9–10. Readers working with other Indigenous contexts will need to translate the argument, and the book does not claim that one model fits all.
• An agenda, not a methods manual. The projects and the case study show orientation and priorities; they are not a step-by-step guide to data collection or analysis. Students who need techniques should pair the book with a methods text.
• Assumes some background. The book is written for readers who already know something of colonial history and of academic research, so it is steeper for a first-year undergraduate than for a graduate student.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the postcolonial and decolonial course, this is the book on research and knowledge production. Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks approaches colonialism through psychology and identity, and Young's Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction gives a quick general orientation, so either is a gentler starting point before Smith. Bhambra and Holmwood's Colonialism and Modern Social Theory rereads the sociological canon in light of colonialism, and Bhambra's Rethinking Modernity makes a related argument about modernity. Smith adds the viewpoint of Indigenous peoples and asks what researchers should do about it. Harrison's edited Decolonizing Anthropology and Adébísí's Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge turn the same concerns on two particular fields, anthropology and law, so Smith serves as the general background for both.

How to Use This Book

The book is for graduate students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, education, health and related fields, and for anyone who will carry out research with or about Indigenous communities. No special technical prerequisite is needed, but some familiarity with colonial history and with how research is designed will help.

A practical order: read the Introduction and Chapters 1–3 first, since they set out the critique that the rest relies on. Read Chapters 4–5 if you plan fieldwork or ethical review. Chapters 6–8 form the core of the constructive argument, and the Māori material in Chapters 9–10 shows it in use. Chapters 11–12 are the place to think about research as advocacy and storytelling. If time is short, the Introduction, Chapter 2, Chapter 6 and Chapter 10 give the shortest coherent path.

Keep a research question of your own at hand while reading and ask, for each project or principle, who sets the agenda, who benefits, and who controls the results. For readers new to the field, a short general introduction to postcolonial thought beforehand makes the first chapters easier.