Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed. London: Zed Books, 2012. 256 pp. Paper, $34.95.

In May 2012 the highly anticipated second edition of Linda Tuhiwai Smith's Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2012) was released by Zed Books. In the thirteen years since it was first published, Decolonizing Methodologies has been translated into a number of languages and read widely, consulted by both activists and scholars alike-surely making it one of the most influential and oft-cited works in contemporary social science research and discourse. I urge those who have not yet found this text and would wish to work or collaborate with minority-status communities, especially with native or indigenous peoples, or who are intrigued by the possibilities opened up by indigenous perspectives-to take a look at this book. It is a must-read text. To those who have read the first edition, I urge you to pick up a copy of this new edition, as it features new, updated, and revised materials.

In evoking the politics of decolonization in her title, Linda Smith is explicit in her message: this is a book about power. Originally written for an indigenous audience, intending to help other indigenous researchers think through community-based research initiatives with indigenous communities, Decolonizing Methodologies is neither a technical book nor a revolutionary manifesto. Instead, Smith uses this text to disrupt the dehumanizing gaze of "objective" research. She is deliberate with her language, theoretical concepts, and arguments to explain how historically, "research through imperial eyes" has worked to oppress indigenous peoples and suppress indigenous knowledges. However, with Decolonizing Methodologies, Smith teaches us that decolonizing is not about the tools, per se, but is instead about one's approach and relations to research-whether it is called that or not.1 Refraining these conversations as research methodologies, Smith is able to provide a touchstone between these two worlds-research and indigenous peoples. By repositioning these relations, she is able to use Decolonizing Methodologies to center community-and culturally derived assumptions about the nature, importance of, and relations to research as one's relations to othersthus (re-) affirming the importance and value of research for indigenous communities and other communities "in the margins."

While working primarily in the realm of the theoretical, Smith's purpose for the material...