Researcher Summary
My research interests lie at the intersection between Indigenous peoples and organizations. Studies on Indigenous business, entrepreneurship, leadership, and management have offered some interesting and valuable insights over the past few decades. Combined with the inspiring work emerging from Indigenous Studies (IS) and the stimulating writings of Critical Management Studies (CMS) and Organization Studies (OS) scholars, I am interested in research which says something about the study of organizations and organizing insofar as they have relevance for Indigenous peoples and their communities. I’m interested in research that is done in university business schools, the kind of research which considers Indigenous people at the centre and at the periphery of managing and organizing, the ongoing life and ‘functioning’ of organizations and the Indigenous people within and around them, and what workplaces and communities might look like when their organizing principles are based on indigenous knowledges and ways of doing things. I am wary of research; Indigenous scholars and communities have drawn our attention to the fact that research has had a bad reputation among Indigenous communities for some time now (Smith, 1999, 2012). What makes research so appalling at times is when Indigenous peoples and communities are treated as commodities in the production of knowledge; I’m interested in understanding this treatment. I have a further interest in understanding how Indigenous workers are excluded and exploited in organizations and how those workers seek to challenge the institutional arrangements they are confronted with.
