Methodology and Research Techniques 567

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Review

Author(s): Thomas D. Hall Review by: Thomas D. Hall

Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 3 (May, 2000), pp. 567-568 Published by: American Sociological Association

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Methodology and Research Techniques 567

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith.

New York & London: Zed Books, 1999. 208 pp.

$62.50 cloth. ISBN 1-85649-623-6. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 1-85649-624-4.

THOMAS D. HALL

Colgate University and DePauw University

Linda Tuhiwai Smith's goal is to equip researchers from indigenous communities with concepts and worldviews for conducting research from an indigenous perspective. She was prompted to write this book because the usual guides to cross-cultural research presumed that researchers were from the dominant community. However, the book is of general interest because Smith examines many questions about the politics of research.

In her introduction, Smith notes that many indigenous peoples lament that they are the often studied, but they seldom do the studying.

She discusses the problematic nature of the term indigenous, which lumps a wide diversity of groups together. With that caveat in mind, she explores the difficult position of indigenous researchers: between an indigenous community and the Western academy. As community mem- bers, they must show proper respect and share their knowledge. This means making information available in usable form, not simply hand- ing out coples ot reports. r

The first several chapters are concerned with the research setting. The study of indigenous peoples is perforce part of the legacy and contin- uing dynamics of imperialism. In Smith's informed by their sociological understanding.

Each essay opens a window on the life of the contributors and helps us, the readers, understand what it means to be a sociologist and to study everyday life. Far too often, sociological tomes are so removed from our daily concerns that readers, especially students, find it hard to relate the two. This is not the case in this vol- ume; it paints many sketches of life scenes, which are interesting and often moving. Each essay is no more than a few pages long, provid- ing an immediate and vivid picture, such as, for example: "I lean over and kiss my mother's dry, weathered cheek. 'I'm going to have to leave,' I say it into her ear. She turns away and so do I.

It's the same in death as it has been in life"

(Rubin, p.18).

Glassner and Hertz write a clear, concise introduction, dividing the book in four parts in a very original manner. The four parts are Public Spaces, Family Spaces, Interior Spaces, and Workplaces. In Part 1 the contributors examine themselves in relation to the outside world. The public spaces considered are varied, from taking a dog to the park to visiting one's mother in a nursing home, all the way to spending time in a tattoo studio. Part 2 addresses family spaces, and the editors tell us that "Families are also spaces.

. They exist in physical and emotional spaces that change over time" (p. xi). The topics exam- ined vary from how changing from a dyad to a triad alters the balance of a family to how various elements affect the privacy of family life.

Part 3 tackles spaces in one's mind, as the authors carry on interior dialogues concerning their identity. The reflexive discussions range from reflections about the worthiness of watch- ing a cricket match to the beauty of trout fishing in Montana. Part 4 suggests that workplaces are far more similar in patterns than their apparent diversity would indicate, from academic depart- ments to medical institutions.

It would be impossible in this limited space to summarize all of the essays and their themes, so I apologize to the contributors whose essays I have not mentioned here; as for the readers of this review, all 26 essays are compelling; you will just have to read the book!

Glassner and Hertz have put together a very innovative collection of short qualitative essays.

The book makes for lively and enjoyable reading for sociologists interested in seeing how a num- ber of their colleague use "moral crises and per- sonal epiphanies" (p. x) to make sense of their

everyday life; this well-written book should also be marketed to an educated lay audience interested in new approaches to sociology, such as the qualitative autoethnographies presented here.

Finally, as the editors themselves suggest, the collection of essays can be valuable as supple- mentary readings in introductory sociology courses, to show students how sociologists use their trade to understand not only others but themselves as well.

After reading the book, I was left with the same feeling that is expressed by Kleinman in her essay: "I like to think I was always a sociologist" (p. 23). Yes, because this sociology as a per- sonal narrative is both informative and cathartic.

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568 Methodology and Research Techniques account imperialism itself can refer to economic expansion, subjugation of peoples, an idea, or a field of knowledge. She has little patience with postcolonial discourse, quoting Australian Aborigine Bobby Sykes, who asked, "Post-colo- ruialism? Have they left?" (p. 24). A major prob- lem with postcolonial discourse is that it seldom, if ever, deals with concerns of the quintessential victims of colonialism, indigenous peoples.

Related issues are authenticity and fragmentation. Colonialism complicated the issue of who is indigenous, and social fragmentation is more than a postmodern condition. Rather, for indigenous peoples it is a consequence of imperialism. Smith then discusses how history, writ- ing, and theory are about power relations, as well as facts. Hence, there are many contested histo- ries. While much theorizing is flawed, this does not mean all theory should be abandoned.

Rather, it should be used in the context of inc igenous concerns.

Smith reviews how the imperial vision distorted views of indigenous peoples as "savage,"

in need of education and salvation. This discourse often racialized analysis and led to very distorted views of gender relations. More mun- dane problems are how to translate basic terms for such things as "family," especially when kin- ship relations are organized in very different ways than they are in Europe. Time and space are especially difficult are concepts to translate.

Smith discusses how imperialism rearranged the world, from weeds to knowledge. While new plants vastly disrupted local ecologies and pathogens killed millions, new concepts of knowledge brought by missionaries and schools undermined indigenous cultures. These changes led colonizers to use inappropriate racialized and essentialist criteria of authentic indigenousness.

The harmful legacies of early research are the topic of the following chapter. These range from factual and interpretive erro,rs to distortions introduced in the quest for the pristine "native."

Even when accurate, the reporter, not the

"rtative" informant, is credited with producing the new knowledge. Colonizer and indigenous views differ radically. Whereas the imperial account sees land acquired by trade, the indigenous sees it as theft. Where the former sees a

sequence of discovery, population decline, acculturation, assimilation, and reinvention, the latter sees invasion, genocide, survival, and recovery.

Chapter 6 begins the development of an indigenous approach to research. This effort

"might also be described as a modernist resis- tance struggle," which challenges the concept of the nation-state, and the fundamental purposes of research (p. 107). Indigenous research often originates either in a community action project or in a space opened for it inside the academy by sympathetic colleagues. Smith notes that responding to community need not contaminate research any more than does responding to gov- ernment funding agencies. The bulk of the Chapter 7 describes one Maori center in New Zealand. The next chapter describes 25 different indigenous research projects.

Smith uses the history of Maori research to illustrate one way indigenous research can be done. She eschews giving specific instructions here, or elsewhere, since the details must be developed in the context of a specific community, its needs, and its values. She does note the parallels between indigenist and feminist cri- tiques of research. The final chapter describes the challenges of developing a Maori approach to research. These include convincing the Maori community that research can be valuable, convincing the various research communities of the need for greater Maori inclusion in the research process, heeding past research, and attending to current needs without being overly limited by them.

Smith's account is brief and readable, suffi- cient to get students into the issues, without bogging them down in a mass of complex ver- biage. Most of her examples are drawn from her own Maori background, but she discusses them in general terms. Their general unfamiliarity to North American students is an advantage because the illustrations do not carry the emotional and political freight that more familiar examples would. Decolonizing Methodologies is a valuable supplemental text for any methodology course because it focuses attention on research as a social act and forces attention to the assumptions that underlie any research project.