Community-based research

Community partnership is at the heart of CIEDAR’s work. Our team partners with Indigenous communities across Turtle Island, addressing their needs by centering the strength and wisdom embedded in their ancestral traditions and teachings. These knowledges and practices are woven into surveys, land-based methods, and qualitative (e.g., talking circles or interviews) projects that allow communities to share their lives and lived experiences with academics and other communities

Current Project

  • Taché Waters Healing Society

    CIEDAR and Taché Waters Healing Society have partnered to co-develop an evidence- and land-based healing camp that is currently being supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s (SHHRC) Partnership Development Grant and the University of British Columbia’s Partnership Recognition and Exploration Fund. The camp will address physical and mental health disparities, as they are experienced by First Nation families living in the Northwest Territories. Reconnecting to culture and community at land-based healing camps contributes to improved health outcomes among Indigenous Peoples, allowing the community to thrive through the work done through this partnership. The co-leads of this work are …

    • Dr. Michelle Johnson Jennings

    • Dr. Katherine A. Collins

    • Dr. Kimberly Huyser

CIEDAR Partnerships in Aotearoa

  • CIEDAR has partnerships with Māori communities, organizations, and researchers in Aotearoa (New Zealand), including Massey University, University of Waikato, the Ngāti Apa Research Group, Te Atawhai o Te Ao, Te Runanga o Nga Wairiki and the Kakano Rangatahi.

    CIEDAR leadership presented to the Community Kōrero at Tū Tama Wahine o Taranakiat and the Ngāti Tāwhirikura at the Land and Sea Symposium in November 2022.

    CIEDAR team members presented at the Tangata Whenua Tangata Ora Project team gathering and at the Te Ruunanga o Ngaa Wairiki Ngaati Apa’s “Rising Before Dawn Indigenous Learnings from the Pandemic” workshop in Marton in February 2023.

Hearing Indigenous Voices During the COVID-19 Pandemic Symposium

  • In June 2023, CIEDAR hosted a dialogue session, Hearing Indigenous Voices During the COVID-19 Pandemic, highlighting the experiences and triumphs of Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island and around the world. The hybrid dialogue session with researchers based in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand included presentations and discussions about lessons learned on conducting research in Indigenous communities and about Indigenous resilience during the pandemic.

    The event was presented in partnership with UBC Health After 2020 Dialogue Session, UBC Sociology, UBC Indigenous Land-Based Health, Wellness, and Education Research Cluster, and CoVaRR-Net EDI&I.

  • Watch the full video here.

CoVaRR-Net Spring 2023 Meeting Workshop

  • CIEDAR partnered with the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Indigeneity (EDI&I) team to offer a training workshop on engaging with Indigenous communities and partners. In addition, CIEDAR Lead Dr. Kimberly Huyser was part of the breakout session called “Data and Reagent Sharing,” during which she spoke about the importance of Indigenous data sovereignty.

Wastewater Needs Assessment & Infographic

  • CIEDAR published a one-page summary to educate Indigenous communities and academics on what is needed for Indigenous Peoples to sustainably participate in wastewater surveillance.

    If you’re interested in wastewater surveillance in your community, please contact the director of CoVaRR-Net’s Wastewater Surveillance Research Group, Robert Delatolla, Robert.Delatolla@uottawa.ca.

  • View the full infographic here.

Outputs

Webinar on Health Equity

  • CoVaRR-Net’s CIEDAR hosted a virtual panel called “Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian Research Ecosystem Webinar” in collaboration with Genome Canada, the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, and CanCOGen on December 6, 2021. Panelists included Dr. Jessica Kolopenuk, Taylor Morriseau, and Leona Star, and the panel was moderated by CIEDAR Lead Dr. Kimberly R. Huyser. The webinar covered issues specific to engaging Indigenous populations in research such as open data/open science, data sovereignty and appropriate.

Webinar on Vaccine Hesitancy

Journeying to Reconciliation Infographic

  • CIEDAR has a partnership with Taché Waters Healing Society, working to develop a land-based healing camp for a Northern First Nations community. This infographic outlines how research partnership development serves as a pathway to reconciliation. However, the path to using research as a form of reconciliation is complicated, presenting barriers throughout the partnership process. This infographic outlines three common problems that often arise during the partnership process:

    1) Navigating the uncertainty of being on unfamiliar ground and in a new research relationship,

    2) Struggling to reconnect with Indigenous wisdom that has been erased by colonialism,

    3) Attempting to facilitate reconciliation as partners return to their regular lives.

    While difficult, it is not impossible to overcome the challenges present in partnering with Indigenous communities and researchers can let Elder teachings guide the way.

    View the full infographic here.

Land as a Process of Reconciliation Manuscript

  • Given that Indigenous Peoples in Canada continue to face health disparities as a result of ongoing colonial attempts at genocide, reconciliation requires using a decolonized health framework that identifies oppression and marginalization while seeking to improve Indigenous Peoples’ health and facilitates a shared understanding of well-being. Community and land-based interventions hold promise in providing insight into how the reconciliatory process can occur and have been shown to successfully address the health disparities experienced by Indigenous Peoples by connecting participants to their kin, culture, and identity. However, the impact of these interventions on facilitators, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, is lesser known. This qualitative study explores the reconciliatory effects of a decolonized framework on 10 Indigenous and ally community-engaged facilitators during a land-based healing lodge using semistructured pre- and postinterviews. Findings indicate that engaging with the land as an equitable research partner while being reflective allows facilitators to develop a decolonized relationship with the place an intervention is being held, themselves, and effectively engage with the partner community. Furthermore, by implementing a decolonized approach to culturally centered interventions, several facilitators’ perspectives of healing transitioned from understanding healing as an outcome to a holistic process that engages place and the broader ecology. These findings signal a need for those working toward reconciliation (e.g., researchers, evaluators, health and health-allied professionals) to consider the influence of Indigenous ways of knowing and being on both Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals involved in the healing process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

    Johnson-Jennings, M., Huyser, K. R., Collins, K. A., Jessome, M. G., Christianson, T.-l. D., Chavez, T., & Lockhart, F. J. (2025). “And they are still the guardians of these sacred waters …”: Land as a process of reconciliation. American Psychologist, 80(4), 494–509. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001372

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