Vol. 11 No. 2 (2012)

From time-to-time the Fourth World Journal features a Special Issue spotlighting a topic that demands attention, but with out the special focus would probably not receive a great deal of notice. More than two years ago, Dr. Teshia Solomon and I began a colloquy about the possibility of publishing papers produced from the Native Research Network’s annual sessions. This US-based network was founded as an informal group of American Indian researchers (mainly concerned with health matters) in 1997, and has become a non-profit organization located in the State of Oklahoma that now includes American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians and

Aboriginal researchers in Canada. After some discussion, Dr. Solomon and I came to realize that much of the research being conducted by indigenous researchers in North America tended to rely heavily on conventional research methodologies that emphasized reductionism—condensing complicated research questions to rather limited aspects of much broader problems. Learning that Dr. Solomon heads the Native American Research and Training Center at the University Arizona raised the possibility that a collaborative effort between the Center for World Indigenous Studies and the Native American Research and Training Center could create an opportunity for native researchers to publish the results of their work that relied on methodologies that depend on scientific approaches grounded in ancient knowledge systems predating the conventional sciences. Accordingly we agreed on the following: “This issue [of the Fourth World Journal] shall focus on indigenous health and healing research that points to effective approaches for applying traditional knowledge treating and reversing the adverse effects of chronic disease. We are hopeful that researchers will have employed indigenous or “traditional knowledge inspired” research methods and will point their outcomes to the application of traditional healing techniques or methods to the prevention and treatment of chronic disease.” We were pleased to find such studies among the NARTC researchers did exist, and now after a few years we are ready to release the results of our efforts.