Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Research Adventures on Indigenous Lands: They Came, They Saw, They Named, They Claimed
The Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective shares Research Adventures on Indigenous Lands by Linda Tuhiwai Smith.

Sketch of Columbus
ABOUT
In this chapter, Linda Tuhiwai Smith confronts the colonial practices of research and its entanglement with conquest.
She outlines how explorers, missionaries, and scholars alike contribute to systems of domination by naming, categorising, and appropriating Indigenous knowledge, land and peoples. The chapter weaves personal reflection with theoretical critique to illustrate how research has served not curiosity but control. Smith argues that decolonising research must begin with ethical introspection and relational accountability. It is not about reforming institutions alone but transforming the very purpose and politics of knowledge-making.
WHO
This reference was recommended by the Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective.
The Collective is a space for critical dialogue, activism, and scholarship that foregrounds Pan-African Indigenist ways of knowing, being, and creating. Formed by members of the Bartlett community dedicated to uplifting the voices, knowledge, and cultural legacies of people of African heritage and their respective Indigenous communities and lands, it aims to challenge colonial legacies and inspire transformation within institutional structures, research and curricula. By integrating creative and scholarly practices, the Collective works to restore narratives that have been silenced or misrepresented. Their work advances decolonial efforts in higher education by creating inclusive spaces and centring diverse African knowledge systems. Bartlett Alternative recognises the Collective’s vital contribution to broadening intellectual and cultural horizons through radical inclusivity and exclusivity, and thanks them for sharing resources that foreground lived experience, land-based knowledge systems, and epistemic justice.
Department Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment
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