Building Change On and Off Reserve: Six Nations of the Grand River Territory

Abstract

The chapter provides a vivid account of using Institutional Ethnography (IE) and collaborative graphical mapping with a Haudenosaunee First Nations community in Canada to explore police investigations and services for Indigenous victims of sexual violence. IE terms and ethnographic methods were adapted to work with and meet the Indigenous community and on-Reserve partner organization’s goals for helping the Haudenosaunee people. “Learning the standpoint and worldview” of the community, “interview debriefing,” “oral collaborative mapping,” and “making discoveries,” are illustrated. Beginning learning from Indigenous survivors, agency workers and Police Officers, the research prioritized without objectifying, “cultural differences” and “institutional discrimination” of the mainstream multi-agency “response” to sexual violence. Mapping’s text-based work process discoveries led successfully to relationship and institution building and calling for government to establish and fund Indigenous organizations on Six Nations Territory. Research steps and maps are included. Major outcomes are listed. How the partner organization incorporated and continues to use what was learned is described.

Many people on Six Nations of the Grand River Territory supported our work. Ganohkwasra Family Assault Support Services and Executive Director Sandra Montour did community-minded work for the Haudenosaunee people long before this, with the goal of realizing Ganohkwasra (Love Among Us). Project researchers Gabriella Salazar and Amye Werner, Doris Henry, Staff at Ganohkwasra, and Six Nations Police Service Officers, Policy Analyst, and Chief Glen Lickers, contributed substantially to the work and its success. Off-reserve justice and service providers generously participated, telling us about how they do their everyday work and joining our Final Gathering presentation and conversation at Ganohkwasra. Nya:weh.

Quotations throughout this chapter are the words of the speaker but in some cases lengthy quotations have been condensed for clarity and in order to succinctly convey and highlight the points speakers are making and formulating in conversation.

Thank you to Liza McCoy, Suzanne Vaughan, and Paul Luken for helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Its shortcomings are the writer’s responsibility.