During the 2013 American Indigenous Research Association (AIRA) conference, it was noted that graduate students using Indigenous research methodologies make unique contributions to academia and have unique needs. In response, Student Storytellers Indigenizing the Academy (SSITA) was formed, a worldwide support network of graduate students using an online forum. A SSITA working group launched a project with two goals: to gather SSITA members’ stories about decolonizing research and to reflect on how decolonizing research may impact their sense of place in the Western academy. This project was also an opportunity for students to develop a method for conducting collaborative research across space, time, and cultures and share that knowledge with the broader scholarly community. Several themes emerged: our varied, sometimes disorienting, educational experiences; our difficulty in locating and accessing mentors and resources; and our resilience in developing and sharing our solutions to decolonizing our research.

No abstract