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We are Indigenous knowledge holders, herbalists, academics, and community environmental health staff who have the honor and responsibility of curating and sharing knowledge about traditional plants and medicines. Together, we created the Native Plants and Foods Curriculum Portal. This online sharing platform increases accessibility to Indigenous knowledge that is vital to the wellbeing of our environment and all those within it. In this article, we tell our story to concurrently share the knowledge itself as well as the importance of respecting the knowledge and the responsibility of holding that knowledge.
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This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2025
Old Knowledge, New Tools: Applying an Indigenous Approach to Social Network Analysis
Program work with American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities necessitates Indigenous approaches and methods for evaluation. AI/AN researchers are working to reclaim evaluation as a traditional value and identify methods that fit into existing Indigenous evaluation frameworks. However, an increased understanding of how to utilize data collection tools appropriately and how they fit within these Indigenous frameworks is still needed. In this article, the author describes the process, rationale, and reflections on using a social network analysis tool while grounded in Indigenous evaluation principles. We discuss how displaying the results using a GIS story map can tell the story of a community of practice of Indigenous plants and foods educators. This article addresses the Southern Door—Be of Good Mind—as it describes a method that centres on community, honors relationships, and focuses on resiliency. By presenting the results through a GIS story map, the data can be gifted back to the communities and connect the relationships on a spatial scale to honour the inseparable connections between Indigenous plants and foods work and the land on which it takes place.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1812543
- PAR ID:
- 10576332
- Publisher / Repository:
- University of Toronto Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation
- Volume:
- 39
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0834-1516
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 313 to 328
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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