Strategies for Inclusivity of American Indian and Alaska Native Peoples in Behavior Therapy Research: Within-Group Diversity, Data, and Ethical Recommendations.
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: THE DOMINANT narrative and depictions of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities are situated in the past, within fictionalized media representations, and posit that AI/AN peoples no longer exist.The reality is that AI/AN communities have and still do inhabit their traditional homelands, and tribal communities can be traced across the U.S. A constant is that most, if not all, tribal names reflect an interconnectivity and a recognition of humanity; these names hold variations that translate to "people," the "real people," or "human beings."Identity reflects geography, history, ancestry, and an understanding of what it means to be alive and in communion with all that is alive.Likewise, the authors of this piece come to you humbly as academics, teachers, and learners, but also as the real people of the tribal lands of Turtle Island (i.e., the U.S.).The goal of this commentary is to (1) convey the richness, diversity, and inherent strengths of AI/AN peoples, which cannot and have not been extinguished by any force of humankind; (2) lay charge to the persistent and unrelenting impacts of historical trauma and oppression upheld by sociopolitical systems and institutions of settler-colonial dominance and evident in racism; (3) posit that behavioral therapy research, data, conclusions and applications therein are rarely specific to nor examined among AI/AN communities; and (4) hold that addressing issues with sampling, methodology, measurement, and data management are key to increasing appropriate research and data analyses specific to the AI/AN population, and thus, pertinent to research reconciliation and sovereignty.Moreover, we assert that the twofold process of decolonization and indigenization is crucial.Smith (2021) defines decolonization as "once viewed as the formal process of handing over the instruments of government, is now recognized as a long-term process involving the bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic and psychological divesting of colonial power" (p.112).Whereas indigenization refers to the inclusion of Indigenous peoples, epistemologies, knowledge systems, worldviews in science, research, and policy to predominantly Western spaces and systems (Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018).
Source: PubMed
Authors: Maria Tavo, Nyché Skavaq Sivulliuqti
Institution: Yale University
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4378745122