Coordinated by :Carole Levesque (DIALOG, INRS, University of Montreal, Canada) with Renato Athias (University of Pernambuc, NEPE, Recife, Brazil)

Several important issues emerged with the negotiation of the UNDRIP and from its provisions, which question the Indigenous Peoples positions within global, larger, and state policies: they have to make space to indigenous representatives and their proposals. How is that done? and how the proposals which are made include elements of justice ? This is what we would like to focus on.

When indigenous issues are at stake, and taken into consideration, we observe that they generate an effect on research structures, programs and processes, under certain conditions: namely when Indigenous Peoples become visible and start to speak by and for themselves: “idle no more”. In different countries, where Indigenous Peoples have a voice (Spivak), textbooks on ethics have been written, are circulating and define new conditions for doing research: be they considered as a brake to put an end to “un-just research”, or a means to do a “just research”, a global assessment is to be done which requires the association of indigenous and non indigenous researchers. Collaborative and activist methodologies do not only contribute to focus on issues that matter to indigenous societies but also enrich social research by way of in-depth analyses of situations difficult to accede without local permission.