ABSTRACT

Canadian policies on research ethics and institutional constructions of research ethics reify colonial relations, erase Indigenous presences from research and education, and are analogous to historical projects of settler colonial erasure that establish settler rights to land. Indigenous peoples are always placed “somewhere else,” and that extends to research practice. These research relationships are institutionalized as “ethical” at the beginning, but rarely followed up with at the end. A re-working of research ethics conventions is important to account for Indigenous presence throughout the academy, as well as to reflect the different form and functions that research can and will take in a decolonial future.