Introducing Indigenous methodologies to pharmacy practice research

Introduction

A plethora of knowledges and knowledge systems exist across and within the many nations of the world. Such knowledges and knowledge systems inform the ways of being, thinking and doing of their respective peoples. Within academia and pharmacy practice research, common ways of being, thinking and doing also inform the research practices and methodologies used by researchers. Kovach¹ noted that “any methodology is both a knowledge belief system (encompassing ontology and epistemology) and the actual methods.” Unlike other methodological approaches that may be rooted in Eurocentric Western paradigms, Indigenous methodologies are deeply rooted in the distinct commonalities in worldview that are shared across Indigenous peoples. Indigenous worldview corresponds to the entire spectrum of philosophy, history, heritage, ethics, flora and fauna, educational processes and the relationalities between all beings and ideas—material and nonmaterial.² In a research context (including pharmacy practice research), relationality is not only recognized to be about interpersonal relationships and the research subjects a researcher is working with but also the relationship with all of creation.³ In research, Wilson³ noted that the researcher is answerable to all their relations. Expressing such concepts and relationalities, Indigenous methodologies will often use metaphoric framing to contextualize the research process and research findings.⁴ In this introduction of Indigenous methodologies to pharmacy practice research, I will first examine what constitutes an Indigenous paradigm and then use my own metaphoric framing to broadly discuss Indigenous methodologies. I will then analyze a selection of specific Indigenous methodological approaches before finally reintroducing my own metaphoric framing as a way to offer concluding reflections.

Indigenous paradigm

Indigenous methodologies are distinct from other methodologies because of their flow from an Indigenous paradigm.^5,6 It is understood that “tribal epistemologies are the centre of Indigenous methodologies and it is this epistemological framework that makes them distinct from Western qualitative approaches.”¹ As such, while there are shared commonalities between Indigenous methodologies and qualitative methodologies, for example, the Indigenous paradigm is the ultimate driving force behind Indigenous methodologies. As such, the description, understanding and practice of Indigenous methodologies require a fundamental understanding of the Indigenous paradigm. While the number of aspects of an Indigenous paradigm is limitless, I will briefly highlight 3 specific foundational and personal concepts as an attempt to broadly introduce the Indigenous paradigm to the pharmacy practice research literature: relationality, reciprocity and storytelling.

Relationality

From a personal perspective, I define relationality as the relationships that exist between all beings and ideas—material and nonmaterial. Relationality has defined all of my life experiences no matter how small or large. I believe nothing exists independently and everything and everyone are interconnected. My successes and my failures have always been deeply rooted in the relationships that have nurtured me and guided me on my path. Graham⁷ describes this Indigenous relationality as “an elaborate, complex and refined system of social, moral, spiritual and community obligations that provided an ordered universe for people.” Knowledge itself is described to be relational and shared with all creation.³

In a research context, relationality is recognized to be about not only interpersonal relationships and the research subjects a researcher is working with but also the relationship with all of creation.⁵ In research, Wilson⁵ noted that the researcher is answerable to all their relations. Wilson³ further explained relationality in Indigenous methodologies in the following way:

For research it is important to think about our relationship with the ideas and concepts that we are explaining. Because this relationship is shared and mutual, ideas or knowledge cannot be owned or discovered. Appropriation of Indigenous culture and knowledge has taken place in the past when proper relationships have not been established and honored between researchers and their subjects. Knowledge and peoples will cease to be objectified when researchers fulfill their role in the research relationship through their methodology.

As such, researchers must be guided by and move forward with a strong foundation of relationality to genuinely employ Indigenous methodologies in their research and ensure that the research relationship is mutually beneficial.⁸

Reciprocity

Similar to relationality, I was raised to practise reciprocity in all of my relationships. Sometimes, however, reciprocity is not direct. For example, as a gesture of showing my gratitude for the gifts life brings me and for the many privileges I have come to experience, I give back in ways such as offering tobacco to the land or offering food and/or money to people experiencing homelessness. In pharmacy practice research that uses Indigenous methodologies, the practice of reciprocity should still be observed. In fact, Indigenous methodologies expect reciprocity in all research engagements. The notion of reciprocity in research involving First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples is noted in various policies and guidelines, such as in Chapter 9 of the Tri-council Policy Statement.⁸

In contrast with observational techniques often employed in pharmacy practice research that attempt to be unobtrusive and not influence the environment studied, Indigenous methodologies require respectful and reciprocal relationships within the communities where the research is taking place.⁹ Doing pharmacy practice research via Indigenous methodologies implies doing something good for Indigenous communities. “Reciprocity in Indigenous research rests on the necessary relationship between the scholar and the community that is studied. When the researcher gets something from the community to be able to produce a scholarly work, they have to give something back to the community.”¹⁰ It is both reassuring and unique that Indigenous methodologies practise the Indigenous paradigm characteristic of reciprocity.

Takeaway messages.

• Indigenous methodologies are valid and needed in pharmacy practice and education research.

• For a research method to be identified as an Indigenous research method, it must flow from an Indigenous paradigm.

• Three major foundational aspects common to an Indigenous paradigm include relationality, reciprocity and storytelling.

• Three specific Indigenous research methods include the Kapati method, storywork and the conversational method.

Messages importants.

• Les méthodologies autochtones sont valides et nécessaires en pratique pharmaceutique et lors de recherches en éducation.

• Pour qu’une méthode de recherche soit reconnue comme autochtone, elle doit découler d’un paradigme autochtone.

• Les trois principaux aspects fondateurs d’un paradigme autochtone sont la relationnalité, la réciprocité et la capacité de communiquer.

• Les trois méthodes de recherche autochtone précises sont la méthode Kapati, Storywork et la méthode conversationnelle.

Storytelling

Stories have fascinated and captivated me for as long as I can remember. Stories told to me not only educate me but also strengthen my relationship with the storyteller. Additionally, in my own walk of life and also commonly practised across Indigenous communities, stories are often offered in return for being told a story. As such, relationality, reciprocity and storytelling are all interconnected and help facilitate one another. I have often wondered how and why storytelling has become as rigorous and structured as it has in Western research methods and academia in general. Why is it that a person’s story suddenly becomes “valid” once it is “researched,” written down, peer-reviewed and then published? The story is the same regardless of the medium by which it is shared.

In using Indigenous methodologies, storytelling may become the primary method. In research initiatives that do not use storytelling for the acquisition of knowledge, it is likely that the researcher(s) will engage in storytelling for the purpose of relationship building and as a means of reciprocity necessary for authentic Indigenous methodologies. Using traditional storytelling as a research method “links Indigenous worldviews, shaping the approach of the research; the theoretical and conceptual frameworks; and the epistemology, methodology and ethics.”¹¹ One methodological approach used in Indigenous research is the conversational method,⁶ which “is of significance to Indigenous methodologies because it is a method of gathering knowledge based on oral storytelling tradition congruent with an Indigenous paradigm.”⁶ Storytelling is a central component in both the Indigenous paradigm and Indigenous methodologies.

Metaphoric framing in Indigenous methodologies and research

The emphasis on stories and storytelling as central components to Indigenous methodologies that are rooted in Indigenous paradigm feeds into the use of metaphorical framing, which is another distinguishable difference between Indigenous methodologies and other research methodologies. Stories are powerful methods of teaching, learning and discovery and often are framed with metaphors.¹² Metaphor is an important source of evidence for understanding the ways we think and act and may enhance learning through the innate linguistic and sociocultural nature of the metaphor(s) used.^2,13 Fiddler,¹⁴ for example, used the Nehiyaw cultural tradition of mosahkina wihkaskwa (harvesting and braiding sweetgrass) as a conceptual framework for her research. The practice of mosahkina wihkaskwa involves “preparation, seeking proper guidance and permission, adhering to ethics and protocol, gathering only what is needed, sorting according to size, ensuring everything fits together, taking care in storage and sharing with others and guaranteeing that it is used for the well-being of self and others.”¹⁴ Each step of mosahkina wihkaskwa corresponds to a parallel practice of using Indigenous methodologies and, in Fiddler’s¹⁴ case, the conversational method. I will now use my own metaphor as a means of broadly discussing Indigenous methodologies.

Water as a metaphor to compare Indigenous and Western methodologies

The metaphor I am offering to frame Indigenous methodologies and research is water and its various physical states. While my focus will be on Indigenous methodologies and research, I will also discuss Western methodologies using the same metaphor of water as a way of emphasizing both similarities and, more important, differences between Indigenous and Western methodologies. I have chosen water in its liquid form to represent Indigenous knowledges, methodologies and research, while water in its solid form (ice) will represent Western knowledges, methodologies and research.

Liquid water, which I am using to represent Indigenous knowledges, methodologies and research, not only provides life but also houses life. Major bodies of water, such as oceans, lakes and rivers, carry incredible and diverse life forms that call the water home. The life, stories and histories that exist within the Earth’s water are astounding and with much more to be discovered and revealed; however, it is likely there are some parts of our oceans, lakes and rivers that will never, and should never, be revealed to the outside world. Our water systems in and of themselves are their own ecosystems. In addition, the relationships that our water and the world around and within the water have is another ecosystem. The vast waters that cover Mother Earth can only be fully understood (or not) in their entirety and not by any one or more fraction. It is unreasonable, though, to ever make an attempt to fully understand all of the Earth’s water and the relationships it exhibits with the world around it in its entirety. Perhaps, then, the Earth’s water may best be left alone and our role as humans should instead be to understand and analyze our own relationships with the water instead of the water itself.

In a pharmacy practice research context, why do we take, study and analyze small portions of a whole and assume to “understand” it? We may indeed come to know something instead of nothing, but without the context of the world around and within that water (in this example), we have only a constructed a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the water. Such small portions of “researched” water supply do not exist in the global and relational context of the water’s actual life, so what are we really learning from the microanalyses of water? This frame of understanding may be applied to aid in the understanding of how a researcher using Indigenous methodologies may approach pharmacy practice research.

Similarly, Indigenous knowledges, knowledge systems and Indigenous methodologies and research can be understood through the metaphor of liquid water. If Indigenous knowledges and knowledge systems are understood to be all the waters of Mother Earth, our approach to researching and discovering truths of the water system must come from the same paradigm. Metaphorically speaking, rather than excising a certain volume of water to be researched, which may be considered to be a Western research approach, we should instead immerse ourselves into the body and life of such water systems.

Unlike Western research methods, Indigenous methodologies “require exploration of identity, an ability to be vulnerable, a desire for restitution and an opening for awakenings.”¹⁵ Indigenous methodologies cannot be used “without having a comprehension of tribal knowledge systems and how Indigenous epistemology fits within it.”¹⁵ As such, how can we dissect and analyze a whole (e.g., a population, community) without first truly understanding it, being part of it, exploring our own relationship with it and including it in the process and interpretation of the research? I ask this question, though, from an Indigenous paradigm, which is necessary to use Indigenous methodologies in pharmacy practice research.

Indigenous peoples and our ways of understanding “do not receive attention and, in most cases, Indigenous voices get lost within Western forms of data analysis and academic writing.”¹¹ I believe the water metaphor is conducive to describing this phenomenon. I see Indigenous voices and knowledges as liquid water (our oceans, lakes and rivers) and Western forms of data analysis and academic writing as water, too, but in its solid state (ice). A Western methodological approach attempts to capture and “freeze” knowledge (data), which is not (always) how such knowledge exists within the context of our living world. Researching our Earth water systems through a Western approach can be conceptualized as scooping water from our water system and freezing it into a large block of ice. While the ice indeed contains the entirety of the water that was retrieved (or “researched”), it no longer exists in the context of its natural state and therefore the relationship any other entity used to have with that selected volume of water will now exist in an entirely different and foreign contextual relationship.

In its frozen physical state, water loses its fluidity, or flux, which is described to be “the experiential quality of how energy moves in the form of an animated holism.”¹⁵ It is understood that “within Indigenous holism, Indigenous Elders and philosophers have articulated the movement of energies as an important aspect of tribal knowledges.”¹⁵ As articulated earlier, “tribal epistemologies are the centre of Indigenous methodologies and it is this epistemological framework that makes them distinct from Western qualitative approaches.”¹ As such, freezing liquid water into ice—or, attempting to study Indigenous knowledges, for example, through the use of Western methodologies and/or coming from a non-Indigenous paradigm—isolates and fragments knowledge, limiting potential possibilities.¹

Considering the same metaphorical framing of classifying Indigenous knowledges, methodologies and research as liquid water, Western methodologies, when used to research Indigenous knowledges, peoples and ways of being, act as a water purification system that filters out what is wanted and what is not wanted. In such a scenario, what is wanted versus what is not wanted is determined by the filter (researcher) and not by the water (Indigenous knowledges, peoples and ways of being). When performing pharmacy practice research, Indigenous knowledges, peoples and ways of being should not be “filtered” and broken down in this way. It should not be up to the researcher or data analysts to compartmentalize and/or “filter.”

An Indigenous paradigm “consists of notions of constant flux, wholeness and interrelationship, all creation being animate and imbued with spirit and space (land) being the main reference point to relate to all else and the manifestation of the constant flux in cycles, phases and repetitive patterns.”¹⁵ Incongruencies between the non-Indigenous paradigm and the methodologies and research that attempt to explain Indigenous entities or ideas lose the holism, relationality and flux inherent within such entities and ideas. In fact, Western science itself can assist in explaining this metaphor in that the chemical bonds in liquid water are in a constant flux of breaking and reconnecting to other molecules of water (H₂O); however, in its solid state (ice), the chemical bonds between molecules of water form a strong, sturdy and rigid hexagonal structure.¹⁶ Thus, even though the water is still water, its structure and relationship with the world around it become changed entirely.

Liquid water—or Indigenous knowledges, methodologies and research—follows an eternal cycle.¹⁷ Just as water has been constant in quantity and continuously in motion since the beginning of time, so have Indigenous knowledges. Indigenous knowledges are held in the relationships and connections formed with the environment that surrounds us and there is no distinction made between relationships made with other people and those made with the environment.³ Like the eternal cycle of water, Indigenous knowledges are in constant flux and undergo evaporation, transpiration, percolation, precipitation, condensation and more; they are never “lost,” but rather are dynamic and mobile, and what knowledge is acquired from the land will eventually be returned to it and almost certainly in a different place than where it was found previously. As such, to apply research methodologies to learn about the water, the paradigm and methodologies used to do so must be sensitive, reactive and adaptive in the consideration of all creation that water may have cycled through. In a humanistic sense and through an Indigenous paradigm, each individual human is not a single entity but rather each carries and eventually contributes to the eternal cycling of knowledge that has taken place since the beginning of time.

I situate myself, a person of both Saulteaux First Nations and Ukrainian bloodlines, as a subscriber to both knowledge systems and methodologies—a consumer, facilitator and producer of both liquid water and ice. I am not, though, exclusively one or the other and my entire being does not and cannot exist in a world of duality. While water may move from liquid to solid form, or solid to liquid form, there is an in-between phase that is often unseen—this phase is vapour. As a person and as a researcher, I live within the vapour. At times I will find myself closer to a liquid phase and other times closer to a solid phase. Part of my role as a pharmacy practice researcher in the realm of Indigenous methodologies is to extract (and also return) stories (the currents that never wane and connect all life forms together) to maneuver my way within and between the phases of water and make meaning of the stories in a way that will engage with, but not disrupt, the constant flux of water’s phases.

Indigenous methodology example 1: Kapati method

Indigenous methodologies are carried through in/with/by Indigenous communities and by Indigenous researchers around the world. Ober¹⁸ shared about kapati (cup of tea) time as a traditional and familiar family and cultural practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities in Australia and New Zealand and presented “kapati time” as a data collection method in Indigenous research. Kapati time “is really about making the space and time for social interaction in a culturally appropriate and safe way.”¹⁸ Within the kapati space, “the process of knowledge sharing is through family members interacting through negotiation, disagreement, debating and arguing.”¹⁸ Ober¹⁸ stressed how stories, which are actively shared and interacted with through the kapati method, make knowledge accessible, alive and real for Aboriginal people as they are consistent with Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies.

Despite many differences between Indigenous communities around the world, storytelling, or “yarning,” “is embedded within the processes and structure of Aboriginal society.”¹⁸ In using storytelling via the kapati method and consistent with Indigenous methodologies as a whole, the researcher must be true to themself, not forget who they are and bring their whole self into the research domain to ensure they are working in an ethical, authentic, genuine and respectful way.¹⁸ Ober¹⁸ reflected on this notion:

As an Aboriginal researcher I can’t help but draw on my epistemologies and ontologies, our ways of being, knowing and thinking, because this is me. I’m in this research as an Aboriginal person who is seeking to engage with Aboriginal participants and to do that I need to be true to myself and draw on our ways of doing things.

Ober¹⁸ suggested that a strong sense of self-awareness in research with Indigenous people, as is required in the kapati method, is a “common-sense” approach.

As is witnessed in the kapati method, being wholly present and storying and restorying lives and experiences shares similarities with a narrative inquiry methodology. Ober¹⁸ cited Bell’s¹⁹ description of how narrative inquiry rests on the epistemological assumption that we as human beings make sense of random experience by the imposition of story structures. The kapati method of data collection draws on the narrative inquiry approach, where the participants’ stories are collected and analyzed to denote how participants draw on their social, cultural and linguistic repertoire to make meaning of new knowledges.^18,20 In addition to teaching about cultural morals, behaviour, boundaries, rules, attitudes, values and making meaning of new knowledges, Indigenous voices have described that our life experiences become our stories and our stories become our gifts and “it is through stories that we can connect with our ancestors.”²¹ Grounded in Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies and ways of being, thinking and doing, the kapati method is an Indigenous methodology that is likely to feel natural, comfortable and safe for an Indigenous researcher working with Indigenous research participants.

Indigenous methodology example 2: Storywork

In an attempt to fully examine Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous ways of knowing within academia and in a way that could be investigated from an Indigenous perspective with rigour acceptable to the academy, Archibald²² coined the term “storywork” as a specific Indigenous methodology. Storywork has interrelational dimensions that transcend time and space, facilitating connection on deeper levels of understanding with each other, with all living things, with the Earth and the multiverse.²² Archibald et al.²² described Indigenous storywork as action, as process and as the seeking of meaning in community, which allows researchers to go deeper into Indigenous storyworlds in ways that the colonizing constraints of Western theories and paradigms cannot. Indigenous storywork may be considered a genre of decolonizing methodologies and, in the action of giving voice to Indigenous research participants, also moves to exemplify an Indigenous methodology.²²

The power of stories and storytelling is not a new discovery. Indigenous storywork aims to tell and retell stories that may have otherwise been told from the perspectives of the powerful and dominant voices that have assumed the right to tell the stories of the colonized and oppressed that have been reinterpreted, re-presented and retold through their own lens.^22,23 Colonial Western research of traditional Indigenous stories and research stories of Indigenous peoples have been used to define, destroy and deter the valuing of Indigenous knowledges, peoples and practices.²² As such, Indigenous storywork not only promotes transformative action in pursuit of social justice for Indigenous peoples in academic settings, but its decolonizing nature and activity as an Indigenous methodology also value and validate Indigenous knowledge systems.²² In addition, Archibald et al.²² provocatively and truthfully described Indigenous storywork as a methodology that disentangles Indigenous peoples from entrapment in knowledge institutions and shifts away from a reliance on “dead white man theories,” clearing a path towards “a clearer and fiercer reclamation of Indigenous meaning-making and lived experience.”²²

Foundational to the practice of Indigenous storywork as an Indigenous methodology are 7 key principles that must be followed: respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness and synergy.²¹ The principle of respect is in relation to “respect for cultural knowledge embedded in the stories and respect for the people who owned or shared stories as an ethical guide.”²² Responsibility in research encompasses many meanings,³ including taking responsibility for any mistakes in the researcher’s work because “those who shared their knowledge with [the researcher] did so with great care and often [say] that they spoke the truth as they knew it.”²¹ Reverence in Indigenous storywork and in other decolonizing and Indigenous methodologies^1,3 is demonstrated through prayers, songs and the ethical and deeply respectful ways in which the researcher approaches their work and the handling of Indigenous people’s stories.²¹

Ever present in an Indigenous paradigm and as witnessed in Indigenous research,^3,10 reciprocity in Indigenous storywork emphasizes the criticality of giving back to the people with whom the researcher works—both in action and following the closure of the research relationship/encounter(s).²² In the practice of storywork, Archibald et al.²² defined the principle of holism as “the interrelatedness between the intellectual, spiritual (metaphysical values and beliefs of the Creator), emotional and physical (body and behaviour/action) realms to form a whole healthy person.” Similarly, interrelatedness as a principle of storywork honours the interrelationship between the story, storytelling and listener and how each entity and each whole person become connected through story, if such connection(s) did not already exist.²² Finally, Archibald²² offered an explanation of the concept of synergy as a principle of Indigenous storywork in the following way:

The power created during the storytelling session seemed interrelational as it moved along the storyteller and the story listeners in the storytelling situation. This interaction created a synergistic story power that had emotional, healing and spiritual aspects. The synergistic story power also brought the story “to life.”

As a collection, Archibald et al.’s²² 7 principles of Indigenous storywork are positioned to guide the storyworker and also serve as an ethical framework for research with Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) communities.²⁴

Indigenous methodology example 3: Conversational method

Akin to the kapati method, storytelling and storywork, Kovach⁶ presented the conversational method as a means of gathering knowledge found within Indigenous research. While the conversational method is found within Western qualitative research and similarities exist between the conversational method and narrative inquiry, for example, this method is positioned within Indigenous methodologies if and when it flows from an Indigenous paradigm.⁶ When used as an Indigenous framework, the conversational method requires several distinctive characteristics:

1. It is linked to a particular tribal epistemology (or knowledge) and situated within an Indigenous paradigm.

2. It is relational.

3. It is purposeful (most often involving a decolonizing aim).

4. It involves particular protocol as determined by the epistemology and/or place.

5. It involves an informality and flexibility.

6. It is collaborative and dialogic.

7. It is reflexive.⁶

With each of these characteristics at play, we can see how the conversational method may then be identified as an Indigenous research method.

It is recognized that Indigenous methodologies are a paradigmatic approach based upon an Indigenous philosophical positioning or epistemology, and therefore the conversational method must hold true to this notion to be differentiated from other methodologies that use conversation.⁶ The research method in and of itself is not sufficient to be qualified as an Indigenous methodology, but rather “the interplay (the relationship) between the method and paradigm and the extent to which the method, itself, is congruent with an Indigenous worldview.”⁶ In particular, the relational nature of an Indigenous paradigm and Indigenous methodologies is frowned upon by certain Western research paradigms because of its potential bias to research; however, Indigenous methodologies like the conversational method embrace relational assumptions as central to their core epistemologies.⁶ In combination with an Indigenous worldview that honours orality as a means of transmitting knowledge, the relationality inherent within the conversational method is expected to result in deeper conversations and richer insights into the research question.⁶ When the time comes for the researcher to analyze their data, ongoing conversation between the researcher and participant(s) is required to avoid, or at least minimize, fragmenting participants’ stories.⁶

The conversational method came to life throughout Fiddler’s¹⁴ research on Examining the Influence of Aboriginal Literature on Aboriginal Students’ Resilience at the University of Saskatchewan. Fiddler¹⁴ employed the conversational method as an Indigenous methodology as she conducted one-to-one conversations between the participants and herself (the researcher) and in locations chosen by the participants where their comfort and privacy would be afforded. As also described and practised by Kovach,⁶ Fiddler¹⁴ practised frequent journaling and self-reflection, including tribal methods of reflection such as paying close attention to the importance of her dreams and what her dreams were telling her during the entire time frame of her research. After positioning herself in her research and writing and offering her traditional practice of harvesting and braiding sweetgrass (mosahkina wihkaskwa) as a metaphor for her conceptual framework, Fiddler¹⁴ went on to fulfill all other characteristics in her work that ultimately identifies her way of gathering knowledge as an Indigenous methodology.

Conclusion

Across the seas that cover Mother Earth, water flows freely. While there are local differences in the quality, colour, temperature and life within and around the water, the water is the same, recognizable and able to be translocated with a certain degree of ease. Similarly, Indigenous methodologies all flow from Indigenous paradigms that share similarities across the world, although unique differences exist. Sharing and making meaning from stories may take the form of kapati in Australia, storywork in British Columbia or the conversational method in Nehiyaw territory in Saskatchewan; however, each way of gathering knowledge is deeply connected by the same Indigenous paradigmatic currents, which identify each method as an Indigenous methodology.

To perform pharmacy practice or pharmacy education research using Indigenous methodologies, the researcher does not have to be Indigenous; however, the researcher must have a strong understanding and application of the paradigm(s) that exist within the specific Indigenous community or communities where the researcher is conducting research. While Indigenous methodologies have been around for millennia, their entry into mainstream academia and research are only decades old. Within the realm of pharmacy practice and pharmacy education research, Indigenous methodologies are brand new and must be recognized with the same confidence as all other research methodologies used. Indigenous researchers, Indigenous pharmacists and Indigenous communities must be centred in pharmacy practice and pharmacy education research that includes Indigenous peoples, families and/or communities. In addition, peer reviewers who are Indigenous or who understand and practise the paradigms of the Indigenous peoples or communities being researched and written about are essential. Indigenous people’s stories have been told by non-Indigenous pharmacy practice researchers and in ways that may not be traditionally Indigenous for far too long. Introducing Indigenous methodologies to pharmacy practice research has the capacity to change the research and outcomes of research done by and with Indigenous peoples and communities to better reflect the paradigms present across Indigenous peoples.