Positivist And Indigenous Research Paradigm Essay

The concept of knowledge in many ways has opposing forms within the Native American context in comparison to the western context. The mutual area of which these two branches of philosophy meet is in respect to phenomenology. Phenomenology relates to science and truth prior to modern science and therefore has more of a connection natural existence of the world. The ideology of knowledge natural existence is key to Native American philosophy of knowledge

According to Deborah McGregor, the term “environment” encompasses many different aspects of nature. From a contemporary perspective, the environment means the components of the earth such as: land, all layers of the atmosphere, all organic and inorganic material, and interacting natural systems. However, for indigenous populations, “environment” is more than the surrounding physical attributes of nature. The term “world view” emerges from the intense bond between indigenous populations and the environment. As a result environment also encompasses how one views and experiences the world (McGregor, 2015). Unfortunately, McGregor (2004) finds that traditional ecological knowledge surrounding environmental

Why are Indigenous people in Australia still disadvantaged with regard to health care and services?

This Assessment will be my personal reflection and analysis of contemporary issues raised for post-colonial Indigenous Australians through two programs on the National Indigenous Television station (NITV), Living Black and NITV News. I will reflect on how these issues have impacted on the relationships between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians, and how Indigenous culture impacts 21st century Australia. Through this I will also consider my own feelings and opinions on how these issues are raised and considered.

J.R. Miller’s article entitled “Victoria’s “Red Children”: The “Great White Queen Mother” and Native-Newcomer Relations in Canada” was published in July 2008 in the Native Studies Review, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p1 -23. The article examines how even though First Nations people suffered tremendously during Queen Victoria’s reign, they maintained their strong allegiance to the Crown mostly due to their kinship mentality. Miller notes that slowly but noticeably, by the end of Victoria’s reign the Great White Queen’s Red Children were beginning to adjust their rhetoric to use the Crown and imperial government at Westminster as counterweights against national and provincial governments within Canada that were oppressing them.

Minority groups are defined as alien residents of nations who no longer have rights to their land. Ordinarily due to colonization. Minority status is the result of adverse discrimination some of the defining elements of these groups are commonly long-term occupation of land, common ancestry, traditional culture, language or formal membership. In the United States, Native Americans, also known as American Indians or just simply Indians are considered to be people whose pre-Columbian ancestors were indigenous to the lands within the nation’s modern boundaries. These people were composed of numerous distinct tribes, bands and ethnic groups. Custer Died for Your Sins is a 1969, non-fiction book by the lawyer, professor and writer Vine Deloria. This was noted primarily for its relevance to activist organizations like the American Indian Movement. The book consists of eleven essays and is critical of aid organizations, for their efforts to so called “help” Native Americans. The author shows readers that instead of helping they were stopping the progress. Deloria 's book discussed and offered many types of solutions in helping Native Americans.

Key aspects of Indigenous knowledge include: monism, holism, relations, reciprocity, and inner/outer space (Frideres). The monist aspect of Indigenous ways of knowing suggests that there is no division between mind and matter. All animate and inanimate things have life spirit, and hence hold knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is holistic as it identifies cultural context as a central influence on knowledge. In this way, Indigenous ways of knowing are subjective. Relationships between all things on earth are a key component of Indigenous thought. This ties into the principle of reciprocity, which highlights the importance of actions and reactions between all things. Indigenous peoples believe they are not only in a reciprocal relationship with living and non-living things, but that they are responsible to them. When one comes about a certain piece of knowledge, one is transformed by it and therefore have a responsibility to act in light of that knowledge and share it in a conscientious manner. Finally, Indigenous knowledge is situated in the ‘inner space,’ as it is inherently colored by the reality that exists in each individual. Reality is bound by cultural and social contexts. In this way, Indigenous knowledge recognizes a multitude of realities that are interconnected

Another characteristic of an indigenous religion deals with the emphasis placed on the spiritual specialists. The general consensus is that anyone can have personal or direct access to spirits or that which is unseen, yet felt (democratized shamanism). There is no special requirement in most indigenous systems that stipulate ‘who’ can commune or interact with spirits, however, as a general rule, many feel that it is best to leave interactions with spirits to those that have been taught or trained through ritual or purification of some sort. Most indigenous religions are not written down, but based on oral

Research methodology and methodological approaches that is, the structured process of conducting research and the overall concepts and theories which underpin research respectively (Bryman, 2008), occupy a central position in the research process as they are both shaped by and translate the researcher’s epistemological position. Epistemology then refers to a researcher’s philosophical stance about the nature, derivation and scope of knowledge (Gilbert, 2008). These positions are seldom ‘spelt out’ but rather understood in the matter of research methodology and approach (Sarantakos, 2005).

In this class, I was presented with an opportunity to reflect upon my personal knowledge of Indigenous

Each individual makes up the society as it is, and various characteristics and beliefs makes up an individual. Although, individual lives together with a variety of personal ideologies, emotions, cultures, and rituals, they all differentiate one person from the other making up one’s own identity. This identity makes up who one is inside and out, their behaviour, actions, and words comes from their own practices and values. However, the profound history of Indigenous people raises question in the present about their identities. Who are they really? Do we as the non-native people judge them from the outside or the inside? Regardless of whether the society or the government were involved in their lives, they faced discrimination in every

Positivism is a theoretical point of view which concentrates on social facts, scientific methods and quantitative data. The research methods that are commonly used by positivists are questionnaires, structured interviews, structured non-participant observation and official statistics. These methods are used as they are objective and reliable. One sociological study that used positivist methods was Durkheim’s Suicide Study. Durkheim used official statistics to study suicide and demonstrate society as a science with its own distinct subject matter.

Research paradigms are ‘the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by members of a given community’ (Kuhn, 1970, p.175). The three most common paradigms are positivism, constructivism or interpretivism and pragmatism. Each of these can be categorised further by examining their: ontology, epistemology and methodology. Fundamentally, ontology is the nature of reality, epistemology describes the relationship the investigator has with their version of reality, and methodology is the various techniques and tools used to analysis their research.

The social science paradigm also known as Post positivism consists of testing hypothesis and research questions that are developed through reasoning. This is done through measurements and observation. Social scientists aspire to science and they seek to study human behaviour, interaction and thought in an organized way; which we can then measure, generalize and replicate. Like any research, post-positivism needs to be backed up by evidence. When a social science research sets out a research project, it is their goal to find evidence that can either agree or disagree with the hypothesis or theories. Post positivism, compared to positivism allows more interaction with the participants of the research project and seeks to highlight the relationship between universal properties between the variables. The best way to understand post positivism is by comparing it to positivism and the interpretive paradigm. Compared to positivism, post positivism is more tolerant for value-based information, however is not focused on qualitative information like the interpretive paradigm, instead the research is mainly focused on quantitative data.

Qualitative research methods are utilized to study the social and cultural phenomena. So it includes observation, participant observation (field work), interview sessions, documents and texts and finally the researcher’s imitations and feedback. [Myers, 2009]