In this symposium, we reflect on a subset of papers that were published in a Special Issue of the American Journal of Community Psychology on Community Psychology and Indigenous Peoples. We explore community engagement with Indigenous peoples, emancipatory projects in Indigenous communities, and participatory psychology research in Indigenous communities. This includes how the values of community psychology and related fields are embedded and integrated with Indigenous ways of knowing, as well as explorations of contested spaces between community science and Indigenous psychology. This symposium therefore fits well with the conference theme of: Working the Boundaries, by highlighting how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous community scientists and educators navigate the discipline-dominated structures to incorporate Indigeneity in various forms. This symposium includes papers that contribute new insights to how the practice of community psychology and related fields of action and inquiry contribute to the social justice and emancipation of Indigenous peoples. Through this symposium we bring to light innovations in community science stemming from collaborative inquiry with Indigenous communities, as well as clarify the ways in which community action and inquiry are relevant to Indigenous peoples.

Mary Cwik, Novalene Goklish, and Victoria O’Keefe will describe the development of a suicide prevention program that is upstream, or focused on promoting wellbeing, is culturally grounded, and contributes to cultural survivance. Their project: “Let our Apache heritage and culture live on forever and teach the young ones”: Development of The Elders’ Resilience Curriculum serves as a strong exemplar of how promotion of Indigenous culture, traditions, and language are critical to community healing and prevention.
Myra Parker and Lynette Jordan will discuss the intersection between mainstream ethical protocols in psychological research and Indigenous research by essentially ‘Indigenizing’ ethical protocols and training. They will explore a community-based approach to developing an Indigenous ethics model and curriculum for training health researchers working with American Indian and Alaska Native communities in their project, Beyond the Belmont Principles. Using community based participatory methods, these researchers developed and evaluated a culturally-grounded ethics training program that, in keeping with Indigenous values, is now available freely, which will assist in training anyone on ethical protocols and procedures when working with Indigenous communities.
Kee Straits and Jaelyn deMaria will address the complexity of diversity within and between Indigenous communities in their paper, Place of Strength: Indigenous Artists and Indigenous Knowledges is Prevention Science. By recruiting Indigenous artists from different communities in their multi-community project, they were able to harness the necessary locally-specific knowledges and cultures to fully understand and appreciate intervention impacts. Through creatively re-thinking evaluation through art, Indigenous knowledges and worldviews are legitimized.
Angela Walden and Amy West grapple with a number of complex dynamics that they encounter as American Indian researchers in American Indian Researcher Perspectives on Qualitative Inquiry About and Within American Indian Communities. Their own challenges, barriers and even distressing experiences as American Indian researchers are courageously articulated in their account of experiences in research relating to a race-based university mascot and through an urban mental health project.