IndigeLab Network

Max Liboiron and Stephanie Carroll are Co-directors of the IndigeLab Network (IN). The Network focuses on how Indigenous-led research collectives work and make change. It supports Indigenous PIs in the usually behind-the-scenes knowledges and methods of bringing Indigenous methodologies and theories of change into the social worlds of labs, studios, portfolios, centres, and other research collectives, especially when they are based in colonial institutions. This project is funded by a SSHRC Partnership grant.

Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)

CLEAR aims to do scientific research and lab-based social relations in a way that foregrounds humility, accountability, and good land relations. From how we choose research questions (and with whom) to how we hire new lab members, our methodologies can be best described as anticolonial; rather than reproducing mastery over nature and access to Indigenous lands for research, we use and create ways to uphold Indigenous self-determination and recognition of relations.  The lab has ~ 30 members from a various disciplines and career stages. CLEAR and our methods are highlighted in Pollution is Colonialism(2021) and the CLEAR lab book. This work is funded by a SSHRC Insight grant.

Community-based plastic pollution monitoring

Creating locally-focused plastic monitoring projects has shown us that Western science methods often do not address community landscapes, research questions, or priorities. Some of this is technical, such as how the standard for shoreline plastic monitoring assumes sand and we work in places of ice and rock, and some is methodological, such as who owns and has access to datasets. We have been working to transform how science is done, both on the land but also in the lab and in statistical analysis, to better suit unique community needs. Our now complete, co-led, 9-year project in Nunatsiavut, our current collaboration with Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, and an ongoing dedication to monitoring regional plastics in Newfoundland and Labrador have been central to this project. This work has been supported by the Northern Contaminants Program; Crown, Indigenous, and Northern Affairs Canada; the Nunatsiavut Government, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, CINUK, ArcticNet, POLAR Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Indigenous Quantitative Methods

This new project seeks to address two areas that have remained separated for some time: Indigenous methodologies on one hand, and quantitative methodologies on the other. The project begins from the premise that as Indigenous Peoples, we already have numeric traditions and capacities and that quantitative research is not antithetical to Indigenous methodologies. Much of the theorization of this project is done collaboratively through an IndigeLab Network Working Group, and draws heavily on our work with the Nunatsiavut Government. In particular, we consider the crucial differences between “population measures” versus measures about those fish over there, the role and status of zeros and nulls in monitoring research and how they differ in community and Western science, and outline some of the methods of participatory statistics and other forms of community-based co-analysis that led us to these insights. This work is supported by an NSERC Discovery Horizons grant and the Killam Foundation.

Chore Theory

I am working towards a new book, currently titled Chore Theory, that argues that innovating Indigenous spaces and social movements are not exceptional or successful because of big ideas, but because of how we do mundane chores. From daily administrative activism to sweeping the floor, this research considers the material, political, and ethical dimensions of chores in theories of change.

I am currently considering case studies and sites to include in this work. If you or your organization are involved in Indigenous library sciences, rematriation of museum or archival objects, land back activities, or are engaged in the labour of social and political change aligned with land, I would be happy to have a conversation.