Canadian universities co-opt Indigenous research frameworks while maintaining colonial funding and governance structures
Original framing: “Indigenous research can drive meaningful change” — bing news
Secwépemc knowledge-keepers emphasize that research is not a 'methodology' but a relational responsibility — stselxméms (laws) govern who may ask, what may be shared, and how benefits return to land and community. The article's language of 'driving change' reflects Western instrumentalism; Secwépemc frameworks like the 2017 Secwépemc Research Protocol require free, prior, informed consent (FPIC) as ongoing process, not a signature. TRU's Indigenous Research Chair, Dr. Rod McCormick (Kanien'kehá:ka), has documented how universities extract 'data' while denying communities ownership — a pattern the article celebrates as 'collaboration.'
The Castanet article performs a trickster function: it announces 'Indigenous research can drive meaningful change' while the institution publishing it — Thompson Rivers University — operates on Secwépemcúl'ecw under a Board appointed by the Crown, funded by Tri-Council grants that privilege Western peer review, and governed by a Senate where Indigenous faculty hold zero veto power.
The Secwépemc Research Protocol (2017), OCAP® (1998), and RCAP (1996) already named the structural conditions for meaningful change: Indigenous governance over research, not Indigenous inclusion in settler research. Aotearoa's Wānanga and Sápmi's Sami Parliament prove the model exists. What's missing is not 'more research' but the political will to transfer authority — the trickster's gift is always a trap when the giver keeps the deed to the land.