Inquiry and Learning Bundle launched by Indigenous Innovation Initiative

The official name for the Inquiry and Learning Bundle released May 12 by the Indigenous Innovation Initiative is Kagawedowiiwin, (pronounced Ka-ga-wae-do-we-win). In Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) the name translates to request or gather information.

The purpose of the Bundle is to revitalize and evolve Indigenous approaches for inquiry and learning, and to integrate these approaches into every step of the innovation cycle. This intends to re-balance power by enabling access to resources and re-empowering innovators as leaders and decision makers during their inquiry and learning journey. Instead of “retrofitting” Western approaches to monitor, evaluate and measure success and impact, the Bundle outlines an approach rooted in the context of Indigenous ways of knowing and being.  

To create an inquiry and learning model that is rooted in the context of Indigenous innovation, the document defines inquiry and learning as “exploring physical and spiritual realities (inquiry) to create Knowledges that we can share and apply within our communities through a life-long journey of being and doing better (learning).”

 The process of learning provided in the document illustrates the model:

1. Define vision of success;
2. Develop the story (theory of change)
3. Confirm what needs to be learned
4. Design Knowledges creation methods and tools,
5. Create Knowledges
6. Analyze and interpret learnings
7. Share learnings
8. Apply learnings.

“This model supports the intention of this Bundle by re-empowering each targeted innovation program and innovator to continuously create, share and apply the Knowledges they need to learn and grow, while better understanding where to go next. This model also maintains personal and community ownership of the inquiry and learning process, through rebalanced power and equal and equitable access to resources and learning opportunities,” reads the Bundle document.

Marissa Hill, one of four authors that contributed to the Bundle, believes it will be beneficial to many.

“There’s such an uprising in Indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Hill, who is the initiative’s knowledge management and translation associate. “And there’s such a need to make sure that organizations, funders, communities have access to resources to help them do that in a good way. This is one of them.”

In the Bundle there are three goals listed. They are:

• Revitalize and evolve First Nation, Inuit and Métis approaches for inquiry and learning, and integrate these approaches into every step of the innovation cycle
• Re-balance power by enabling access to resources and re-empowering innovators as leaders and decision makers during their inquiry and learning journey
• Create a bundle of Knowledges that we can all pull from to support being and doing better at an initiative, community, funder and ecosystem level

Another document released by the group May 12 is meant to be used with the Bundle. The Indigenous Knowledges and Data Governance Protocol is a tool to guide communities with how they collect and use Indigenous knowledges and data.

“We’ve received nothing but love for these,” Hill said. “The community wants them. The community needs them and folks are saying they’re so grateful to have it, and we’ve had so many people just share saying this is what I’ve needed to do X, Y and Z in the community.”

Hill was the primary author of both documents. Other authors are the initiative’s director Sara Wolfe, and Kristin Neudorf and Becca Smith, who both work for Grand Challenges Canada, an organization that supports innovation to improves the lives of the most vulnerable.

“A lot of the pieces of the Bundle are going to become interactive tools that people can use,” Wolfe said. “And they can start to explore alternative ways of sharing their stories.

“We’re storytellers at heart but how do we use those stories to advance the work that we’re doing in a way that is grounded in Indigenous narratives and not having the stories be told on behalf of us from other contexts and approaches that don’t make sense.”

Hill is hoping the initiative’s Bundle is widely used.

“For us, if we can just provide that thing to springboard from, if folks can evolve and grow and learn and apply it in different ways, that’s what one of the intentions was, aside from our own internal work,” she said.

Hill, a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario, said the Bundle was soft-launched at the Canadian Evaluation Society conference and was very well-received. “Since then we have been invited to be a guest lecturer at an Ontario University (one of the conference attendees) for their research methods course, to integrate Indigenous methodologies into that learning space.”

“It’s really a co-ordinated effort and there’s a lot of co-collaboration and co-creating going on and really just helping each other where we can and how we need to,” she said.

For now, both the Bundle and the Indigenous Knowledges and Data Governance Protocol, are available on the initiative’s website at Home (indigenousinnovate.org) and being shared by initiative officials.

Hill believes printed copies for both could eventually be produced for further distribution.

“I think once we’re back on the ground and into the community it’s definitely something we can look into in terms of creating those hard copy versions,” she said. “It’s hard because of COVID because we’re not out travelling and we’re not able to give it away easily. But it’s definitely something we could do.”

Hill said initiative officials have received plenty of feedback from various communities about both protocols it released this month.

“The focus on this is really allowing and re-enabling work at the community level by giving something for them to build from,” Hill said. “The intention is for both of these to evolve and grow as community uses it and learns about it. And really, we can evolve it and finesse it as we go and learn together. But it’s also intended to support funders, the innovation ecosystem more broadly really helping to integrate Indigenous methodologies into the work that we do.”

The Bundle can be viewed here:

https://indigenousinnovate.org/downloads/inquiry-and-learning-bundle-may-2021.pdf