Indigenous scholars strive to produce research to improve Native communities in meaningful ways. They also recognize that long-lasting change depends on effective leadership. Living Indigenous Leadership showcases innovative research and leadership practices from diverse nations and tribes in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. The contributors use storytelling to highlight the distinctive nature of Indigenous leadership. Native leaders, whether formal or informal, ground their work in embodied concepts such as land, story, ancestors, and elders, and their leadership style finds its most powerful expression in collaboration, in the teaching and example of Eders, and in community projects to promote higher education, language revitalization, health care, and the preservation of Indigenous arts. This inspiring collection not only adds indigenous methods to studies on leadership, it also gives a voice to the wives, mothers, and grandmothers who are using their knowledge to mend hearts and minds and to build strong communities.

Restorying Indigenous Leadership: Wise Practices in Community Development, 2nd edition is a foundational resource of the most recent scholarship on Indigenous leadership. The authors in this anthology share their research through nonfictional narratives, innovative approaches to Indigenous community leadership, and inspiring accounts of success, presenting many models for Indigenous leader development. These engaging stories are followed by a Wise Practices section featuring seven significant contemporary case study summaries. Restorying promotes hope for the future, individual agency, and knowledge of successful community economic development based upon community assets. It is a diverse collection of iterative and future-oriented ways to achieve community growth that acknowledges the centrality of Indigenous culture and identity.

This volume offers new perspectives from Indigenous leaders in academic affairs, student affairs and central administration to improve colleges and universities in service to Indigenous students and professionals. It discusses and illustrates ways that leadership norms, values, assumptions and behaviors can often find their origins in cultural identities, and how such assumptions can affect the evolvement of colleges and universities in serving Indigenous Peoples. It contributes to leadership development and reflection among novice, experienced, and emerging leaders in higher education and provides key recommendations for transforming higher education. This book introduces readers to relationships between Indigenous identities and leadership in diverse educational environments and institutions and will benefit policy makers in education, student affairs professionals, scholars, faculty and students.

Western education has often employed the bluntest of instruments in colonizing indigenous peoples, creating generations caught between Western culture and their own. Dedicated to the principle that leadership must come from within the communities to be led, Voices of Resistance and Renewal applies recent research on local, culture-specific learning to the challenges of education and leadership that Native people face. Bringing together both Native and non-Native scholars who have a wide range of experience in the practice and theory of indigenous education, editors Dorothy Aguilera–Black Bear and John Tippeconnic III focus on the theoretical foundations of indigenous leadership, the application of leadership theory to community contexts, and the knowledge necessary to prepare leaders for decolonizing education. The contributors draw on examples from tribal colleges, indigenous educational leadership programs, and the latest research in Canadian First Nation, Hawaiian, and U.S. American Indian communities. The chapters examine indigenous epistemologies and leadership within local contexts to show how Native leadership can be understood through indigenous lenses. Throughout, the authors consider political influences and educational frameworks that impede effective leadership, including the standards for success, the language used to deliver content, and the choice of curricula, pedagogical methods, and assessment tools. Voices of Resistance and Renewal provides a variety of philosophical principles that will guide leaders at all levels of education who seek to encourage self-determination and revitalization. It has important implications for the future of Native leadership, education, community, and culture, and for institutions of learning that have not addressed Native populations effectively in the past.

"Xwulmuxw Slhunlheni (Indigenous Women) have, since time immemorial, played critical leadership roles in Indigenous communities. However, with the imposition of racist and sexist colonial policies, Indigenous women's roles were systematically displaced. As a result of these policies, which formalized colonial governance systems, the vital informal leadership roles the Xwulmuxw Slhunlheni play rarely receive recognition. This book strives to honour the women in our communities who continue to embrace their important roles as givers of life and carriers of culture. This book reviews new ways to view Indigenous women's leadership. Thirteen women from various Hul'qumi'num communities on Vancouver Island and the Mainland, share their thoughts on leadership and stress the importance of living our cultural and traditional teachings. A central theme for leadership emphasizes the importance of keeping the past, present and future connected--a Sacred Cycle that will ensure we bring our teachings forward for the future generations."--

Gregory Cajete has provided another must-read book for educators seeking a comprehensive theory and action to Indigenous education. In clear, coherent, and accessible style, he answers the most important education quest today: what kind of pedagogy can maintain and revitalize the Indigenous peoples in the 21st century? Twofold: Comprehend Indigenous peoples' historical trauma and reclaim Indigenous ways of thinking, teaching, and learning from a context of community, land, and spirit. Done!-- Marie Battiste, Mi'kmaw educator, University of Saskatchewan

A paradigm-shifting book in the vein of Sapiens that brings a crucial Indigenous perspective to historical and cultural issues of history, education, money, power, and sustainability—and offers a new template for living. As an indigenous person, Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from a unique perspective, one tied to the natural and spiritual world. In considering how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation, he raises important questions. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? In this thoughtful, culturally rich, mind-expanding book, he provides answers. Yunkaporta’s writing process begins with images. Honoring indigenous traditions, he makes carvings of what he wants to say, channeling his thoughts through symbols and diagrams rather than words. He yarns with people, looking for ways to connect images and stories with place and relationship to create a coherent world view, and he uses sand talk, the Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge. In Sand Talk, he provides a new model for our everyday lives. Rich in ideas and inspiration, it explains how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everyone and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it’s about a very special way of thinking, of learning to see from a native perspective, one that is spiritually and physically tied to the earth around us, and how it can save our world. Sand Talk include 22 black-and-white illustrations that add depth to the text.