Increasingly, tribal leaders acknowledge that
research is a key tool of tribal sovereignty1 in
providing data and information to guide community
planning, cross-community coordination, and
program and policy development. Efforts to
address longstanding issues, such as health
disparities for American Indians and Alaska Natives
(AI/AN), have increasingly used partnership
research approaches. This document seeks to
strengthen these partnerships by providing insight
about how culture, sovereignty, and experience
matter in research with Native communities.
In doing so, we acknowledge that ‘researchers’
are not just those who are outsiders coming
into Native communities for short periods of
time to collect data2 that is then held and owned
by colleges and other research institutions and
organizations. The term ‘researcher’ in this
document applies to all those who conduct
research including tribal leaders, Elders,3 tribal
and other college and university employees,
Native scholars and students, community-based
investigators, and staff of research organizations or
government agencies.