The primary purpose of this research is to improve well-being and opportunity for the Apsáalooke people. Those participating in the conduct of research, including the project advisory committee, agree to conduct our work in ways that honor the sovereignty and center the needs of people who live on the reservation and their relatives, past, present, and future. For this project, this means that the research team and project advisors will follow some generalprinciples adapted from a guide to research partnerships in tribal communities developed by MSU and the NCAI (NCAI/MSU 2012):

 

  1. Listen and pay attention
  2. Respect cultural and local knowledge
  3. Prioritizing being present in person (when it is safe and acceptable to do so)
  4. Know history, or attempt to learn as much as we can
  5. Leave pre-conceived research assumptions behind: have an open heart and mind
  6. Have personal integrity: Establish trust, be authentic, and act with humility
  7. Have shared goals: Embracing community-driven research in a tribal context
  8. Tribes are diverse: Learn about the tribes you are working with
  9. Plan for sustainability and provide community benefit

 

More specifically we agree to:

  • Collaborate fully on research design and activity while also delivering on the obligations spelled out in the research proposal.
  • Follow the guidelines established for research by the Joint Action Resolution 17-22 of the Legislative Branch of the Crow Tribal Government, specifically:
    •  Relying on the President of LBHC or his/her designees to review and ensure ethics and appropriateness;
    • Working through the President of LBHC’s offer to meet annually with the Crow Tribal Administration and Crow Tribal Legislature to report on research activities and findings.
  • By partnering with LBHC library in data stewardship and using data sharing agreements where applicable (i.e. in requests for reports and financial data from service providers), honor the principles of Legislative Branch of the Crow Tribal Government’s Bill No. CLB08-03 with respect to data sovereignty and the importance of Crow cultural identity, including the granting of “authority, through the Apsáalooke Nation,” to a research advisory board “to maintain and/or own any and all data, presentation materials, manuscripts, professional papers/reports, and any other distributable materials before they are published, and including, but not limited to, repatriation of all that is Apsáalooke, and;”
  • Prioritize the role and voice of Apsáalooke people as the experts and the keepers of the knowledge shared or generated in this work, for example, in decisions about authorship and dissemination of all research findings, including speaking engagements, publications, and other products and activities
  • Secure informed consent from individual research participants through a process approved by MSU and LBHC’s institutional review boards.
  • Provide training and certification in human subjects research ethics to all researchers, including leadership fellows, via MSU’s access to CITI’s Social and Behavioral Research base training.

 

Reference:

NCAI Policy Research Center and MSU Center for Native Health Partnerships. (2012). ‘Walk softly and listen carefully’: Building research relationships with tribal communities. Washington, DC, and Bozeman, MT: Authors. 


Our research protocol was approved by the Little Big Horn College and Montana State University Institutional Review Board’s in 2022. Please contact Julia Haggerty ([email protected]) for more information.