Collaborative Research: Incubation Project: A Pilot Study of Indigenous Perspectives on Ethical and Responsible Research

This incubation project aims to examine technical, political, and cultural challenges that non-federally recognized Indigenous Tribes confront. The project seeks to address these challenges by focusing on the experiences and knowledge of non-federally recognized Tribes in the state of North Carolina. The project offers a unique opportunity to envision ethical research partnerships between U.S. Indigenous Peoples and other groups. The project will facilitate the ability of such partnerships to contribute to solutions for climate change and other pressing environmental crises. The project team will determine how ethical and responsible research partnerships can lead to understanding and promoting respectful scholarship to environmental solutions based on Indigenous knowledge systems. The project is motivated by ethical questions around policies and practices concerning research engagement with Indigenous Peoples whose tribes are not officially recognized by the federal government. The project includes activities aimed at (1) elucidating Indigenous perspectives on environmental research ethics, (2) evaluating the breadth and depth of current environmental research engagements within their communities, and (3) assessing their perspectives and gathering feedback on emerging research policies. This work is a first step in research that has the potential to bring these specific issues to light. The project will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of ethical considerations around research engagement with Indigenous Peoples. This project is jointly funded through the ER2 program by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences and the Directorate for Biological Sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.