Relationality and ethical know-how in Indigenous research

The central aims of principles and protocols for ethics and ethical conduct of Indigenous research such as those found in AIATSIS Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies (2012) and those on pre-­‐ethics protocols recently developed by emerging researchers in this field (Martin, Barrett , Koolmatrie et al , 2015) has been to address the problem of non-­‐Indigenous researchers remaining blind to their own imitations, overlooking the partial and situated perspectives and assumptions that underpin their approaches to research and hence creating asymmetrical relations between researcher and participant -­‐ usually to the detriment of the latter. However, we may ask whether these principals, in themselves, are enough to achieve this aim if the very ontological and epistemological foundations of western research in Indigenous contexts remain the same.