ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the example of a survey of Aboriginal people on their experiences of lived race relations to demonstrate Indigenous quantitative methodology in action. The purpose is to provide an actual example of the process of designing, conducting, analysing and interpreting a survey with First Peoples. Within the example is shown the importance of Indigenous leadership in determining the need for and purpose of the survey, the implementation of Indigenous data collection framed practices and the use of the Indigenous lived reality perspective to develop item and question development. As shown in the chapter, this survey found that negative racial interactions were a part of the everyday reality for the Aboriginal residents of the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory in Australia across multiple directions. Moreover, being a “good Indigenous citizen” was no protection from negative everyday racial interactions. Structurally, respondents did not have faith in either the legal or the political systems to operate fairly and rated current race relations between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous residents poorly, and as getting worse, not better, over the previous decade.
