Decolonizing Data: Unsettling Conversations about Social Research Methods

by Jacqueline M. Quinless

Decolonizing Data explores how ongoing structures of colonialization negatively impact the well-being of Indigenous peoples and communities across Canada, resulting in persistent health inequalities. In addressing the social dimensions of health, particularly as they affect Indigenous peoples and BIPOC communities, Decolonizing Data asks, Should these groups be given priority for future health policy considerations? Decolonizing Data provides a deeper understanding of the social dimensions of health as applied to Indigenous peoples, who have been historically underfunded in and excluded from health services, programs, and quality of care; this inequality has most recently been seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on both western and Indigenous methodologies, this unique scholarly contribution takes both a sociological perspective and the "two-eyed seeing" approach to research methods. By looking at the ways that everyday research practices contribute to the colonization of health outcomes for Indigenous peoples, Decolonizing Data exposes the social dimensions of healthcare and offers a careful and respectful reflection on how to "unsettle conversations" about applied social research initiatives for our most vulnerable groups.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, Science, Social Justice, Academia, Sociology, Race

172 pages, Hardcover

Published February 7, 2022

Reviews

[ᛚᚨᚱᚲᚨ × ᚠᛖᚾᚱᛁᚱ (Semi hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Decolonization is a bridge between two worlds”

And as the author so clearly explains, it's an important and fundamental step towards the well-being of Indigenous people

[...] While it has been touted that Canada is in a era of reconciliation, the truth of the matter is that many Indigenous peoples continue to experience ongoing colonial oppression that contributes to severe health inequalities.

and the respectful and meaningful relationship we need to create and keep improving.

Daschuk's work clearly shows that over the past century public health researchers have been aware that reserves exist in harsh environments and unsafe conditions, all of which continue to contribute to high rates of disease, starvation, suicide, alcoholism, and other forms of trauma but this awareness was dismissed as “officials began to interpret the chronic bad health of the Indigenous population as a condition of their race”.

The book is divided in different chapters, each of of them with their different topic presented in a competent and technical way, without resulting in incomprehensibleness:
Introduction This chapter provides an introduction to Indigenous perspective on well-being and social capital analysis as an analytical framework that is useful to address the conventions of state-centric processes to measure and evaluate well-being.
The Impact of Colonization on Indigenous Health and Well-Being This chapter describes Government of Canada assimilation policy, the reserve system, and residential schools and provides a critical review of the impacts of colonization on Indigenous peoples' health in Canada.
Decolonizing Bodies and a Self-Governing Health System This chapter provides a contextual understanding of how Indigenous peoples' experiences with colonialism have impacted their overall states of health and wellness.
Social Capital Theory, Health Indicators, and Indigenous Communities This chapter considers the relationships that occur across individual and community levels of well-being that emerge in the urban landscape.
Decolonizing Data and Critical Research Methods This chapter presents findings that explore how engaging in traditional practices and cultural activities serves as the basis of well-being and how transgenerational trauma – most notably the impact of the residential school system – affects various aspects of well-being.

Maybe this book is more suited for people that are working in the field, but it's both an interesting and valuable reading.

This book is not about Indigenous methodologies; […] this book offers a conversation about how ongoing structures of colonization negatively impact the well-being of Indigenous peoples and communities across Canada that has resulted in persistent health inequalities. This book is an unique scholarly contribution that yields valuable insights into addressing health inequalities and intends to bring the concept of decolonizing research methods and Indigenous people into mainstream sociology in a way that has until now been neglected. For me, the decolonization of research within social sciences is about rational allyship, partnership, honouring Indigenous ethical protocols, holding space for resurgence, and challenging power structures. In decolonizing my own research praxis, I have reflected about the power structures that define and uphold my thoughts and practices. I explain how research design practices need to be culturally responsive, which means that researchers need to work in partnership with Indigenous peoples, communities, and / or organizations in such a way as to avoid misinterpretations and misrepresentations in the knowledge inquiry process. These are partnerships that will facilitate meaningful dialogue because Indigenous peoples, communities, and organizations can re-story the historical trauma on a number of levels to recreate new ways of understanding and contesting the deeply ingrained structures of inequality.

What does it mean to decolonize? Decolonization offers different pathways for reconnecting Indigenous peoples with their traditional territories and land / water-based cultural practices. The decolonization process operates at multiple levels and necessitates moving from an awareness of being in struggle to actively engaging in daily practices of resurgence. More specifically, it is in those everyday acts of resurgence that the scope of the struggle for decolonization is reclaimed by Indigenous peoples. If colonization dispossessed Indigenous Peoples from land and culture, “the resurgence is about reconnecting with traditional land-based and water-based cultural practices”. While decolonization and resurgence can be described separately, they are viewed in this book as interrelated actions and strategies that inform pathways to resistance and freedom – everyday decolonization and resurgence practices from the basis of Indigenous health and well-being and applying decolonized research methodologies produces knowledge that supports self-determination.

Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. The Impact of Colonization on Indigenous Health and Well-Being
3. Decolonizing Bodies and a Self-Governing Health System
4. Social Capital Theory, Health Indicators, and Indigenous Communities
5. Decolonizing Data and Critical Research Methods
Conclusion

Rating: ★★★½

***Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.***

[Signy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very academic but an important read.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decolonising Data

The title itself seems rich in tensions. Surely most of us who are aware of the need to decolonise our academic approaches are over on the qualitative methods side of things.
However, we need data if we wish to justify demands for projects, for laws, for policies that seek to remedy the harms caused by colonialism. And that data should not be gathered using the 'master's tools'.
Therefore, we need books like this, even if we do not gather statistical data ourselves.

Like Quinless, I work somewhere between sociology and social policy, and I've found that the ability to co-generate data alongside 'subaltern counterpublics', sensitively and confidently, is crucial when communicating the needs of marginalised communities to decision-makers.

I found the book useful and interesting. When concepts such as social capital are introduced, they are explained clearly but also engaged with in a critical way that shows how indigenous peoples have expanded on, or challenged them.

The main focus of the book is research into health and wellbeing. If your work focuses elsewhere you may still appreciate the insights but it might not be as directly relevant.
Chapter 5, however, looks at critical research methods more generally.





Review copy supplied by NetGalley

[Brent · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is based on an ARC received from the publisher and NetGalley

One of the primary purposes of this book is exploring how common research practices can lead to negative outcomes for Indigenous peoples. The focus is on health outcomes, in particular, measures of well-being. The idea that traditional research methods do not accurately assess Indigenous persons and may be indirectly causing them harm is a topic that deserves serious attention.

One of the author's main arguments is that typical well-being measures based solely on socioeconomic factors do not accurately assess Indigenous persons as they themselves would consider their well-being. She considers this to be a sort of 'colonization' or structural violence against Indigenous persons. Later in the text, it is also mentioned that other countries have created well-being assessments based on a wider set of factors, presumably since they had found purely socioeconomic measures of well-being to be inadequate. The text does not consider that well-being measures based solely on socioeconomic factors may be inadequate for everyone, Indigenous or non-Indigenous. Without having considered this possibility, the statement that traditional measures of well-being are a type of structural violence against Indigenous persons is premature.

The author does describe a number of negative and 'colonizing' things that the Canadian government has inflicted upon Indigenous populations. This is very informative, but it might have been more useful to also offer background on how other kinds of ineffective research methodologies have had negative effects on the populations under study. The summary information of the book left the impression that the text would cover a wider range of research methodologies and the negative impact they can have. It would be more accurate (and more informative for potential readers), to clearly describe that the book is specifically focused on measures of well-being.

Another concerning aspect is that the author frequently refers to the "Indigenous world view," which seems to (incorrectly) imply that Indigenous persons have some kind of unified world view based in collectivism, non-ownership, living in harmony with nature, and seeing everything as interconnected. While there is nothing wrong with those characteristics, generalizing them to all or most Indigenous people is a stereotype. Like other cultural and racial groups, Indigenous persons have a wide variety of world views, both between and within tribes. By trying to put all Indigenous persons into one category, the author appears to be making the same mistake that non-Indigenous "colonizers" made when they tried to force Indigenous persons to adopt their own worldview. Just like the "model minority" myth often applied to Asian Americans, even otherwise positive stereotypes are still stereotypes and can still have negative consequences for the people in question.

The book does offer tips for how researchers can respectfully interact with Indigenous persons during the research process, much of which involves maintaining communications with those concerned. And I do think that having researchers think critically about how dominant cultural perspectives in research can negatively impact minorities is an excellent idea. This book addresses an important topic, but it has a very clear ideology of Indigenous activism that frequently stands in the way of what the author is trying to communicate about research methodology. Most academic research tries to at least take the appearance of objectivity in order to be free from bias. I think this book would have been considerably improved if it was written from a more objective standpoint. In spite of it's problems, I'm giving it two stars because it does try to raise important points about conducting research on minority populations.

[Brook C · Rating 4 out of 5]

If one isn't into research publications and essay-style writing, this book can come off as a bit dry. That said, I really enjoyed the depth of research that the author explored and the models that could be used to better improve data collection and evaluation methods in Indigenous research.

[Josee · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the beginning of Decolonizing Data by Jacqueline M. Quinless, the author states that this book is written to aid academics in the field of research however I felt that as a regular person I also gained value from reading this despite the style. Having worked for Stats Canada, Quinless shows her experience and provides insight into the history of how data has been collected on Indigenous Peoples in Canada and how the Government’s Western colonial point of view has painted a negative and often bleak picture of Indigenous Peoples by applying a one-sided set of standards when collecting data instead of a holistic approach.

The author does a good job of showing us examples of how the techniques used to collect data on Indigenous Peoples have often just been another tool of colonization. As we are “living in an era of reconciliation”, we as Canadians are still learning about the long lasting catastrophic damage that the Indian Act in this country has had. The statistics provided on Inter-generational trauma from the residential schools is astounding and it’s disheartening to learn that so little action has yet to be taken by the Government on the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action.

Although this book points out where Canada has gone wrong on how it conducts research, the author provides some hope by highlighting Indigenous led Organizations who are taking the lead in making sure that Indigenous Peoples are at the table when decisions concerning their future are made. The author also provides suggestions and practical solutions on how to apply a two-sided approach which acknowledges both Western and Indigenous cultures that provide a more comprehensive and positive picture of what the future can be for all of us. I learned from this.

[Tiberius McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went in cautious but emerged inspired. Though she is not Indigenous, her positive relationships with Indigenous communities and role as accomplice to Indigenous researchers is clear. Her writing was also concise and interesting. This book was made not only for academics, but for any community researcher or community involved in research to use as a tool to ensure we are toppling harmful research practices at all levels.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decolonizing Data

This is a very good and important book.

Especially relevant for public health and has a specific focus on social determinants of health.

A really good book on how to decolonize and further the reconciliation

Definitely check it out

4.6/5

[Stavros Stavrou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful book for health care academics in particular. I think the title 'Decolonizing Well-Being' would be more appropriate. This book is a great resource of other important literature.