The Possibilities for Indigenous Organization Studies

Abstract

Indigenous organization theories may be employed in distinctly differing ways for manifestly differing ends by a wide range of people—community members, managers, employees, entrepreneurs, academics, policymakers, and so on. They are inherently practical. But to craft them, researchers new to the field (indigenous and non-indigenous) require the support of certain researching institutions and educational processes. In this chapter, academic institutions in colonized states are placed under the spotlight. The point is made that the educational programmes and processes of these institutions—most resembling colonial forms of research education—have comprehensively and consistently struggled to demonstrate their relevance for indigenous peoples. However, plenty of indigenous and critical organization researchers have sought to challenge those same institutions offering hope in the development of indigenous organization studies as a field of scholarly endeavour.