84 Kelly Bannister
deepen our awareness and capacities to work well together across our diversities, in shared goals of protecting culture and environment and caring for the
well-being of our earth and All Our Relations.
This chapter offers an ethical lens to complement a tendency toward primarily rights-based approaches, which can lean us away from Indigenous worldviews based in interrelationships and favor Western philosophical, legal and
scientific paradigms that are based primarily on the autonomous, rational individual. The legal and ethical principle of consent was chosen here as an example, in the context of Canadian ethics policy initiatives, to explore important
relational dimensions of consenting – representing more of an interactive verb
rather than a transactional noun. In this understanding, consent cannot be reduced to an a cronym, and implementation of consent cannot be understood
only as a signature on a consent form indicating that a checklist of criteria
has been met. The quality and meaningfulness of consent as an element for
protecting Indigenous biocultural rights (along with others, such as ownership
and mutual benefit) can shift when intentionally situated within relationships.
An understanding of how rights and responsibilities are inextricably linked has
the potential to not just bring about justice of rights, but also relational justice
through right relationships.
Health researcher Julie Bull (2018) points out that in health research involving northern Indigenous peoples in Canada, “[r]esearchers are ethically and
culturally obligated to build relationships on a foundation of respect, relevance,
reciprocity, and responsibility in an authentic way”, stating that these qualities
are “imperative” in research involving Indigenous peoples as “a means to respect
and practice self-determination in research”.
In his book, Law’s Indigenous Ethics, Dr. John Borrows (2019) explores ethics
in relation to Indigenous rights and other legal issues through the Anishinaabe
Seven Grandmother and Grandfather Teachings. He concludes:
There is no guarantee that the application of good principles will deliver us
from the challenges we face. […] Yet […] our lives could be much better if
we applied concepts of love, truth, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty and
respect more fully in our law.
(Borrows, 2019, p. 240)
In simplistic terms, a biocultural ethics approach speaks to our choice of values
and principles that underlie our quality of being together in whatever it is that
we are doing together. Biocultural ethics inspires more than just good intentions
and fulfilling obligations, but invites deeper consideration and deliberation of the
ethical opportunities in our work, inviting us to build our awareness and capacities for developing meaningful relationships of care and accountability, as well as
respect, humility, reciprocity and integrity, from which will come ethical actions
and greater capacity to address the biocultural rights of Indigenous peoples as
they relate to protection of culture and environment.
deepen our awareness and capacities to work well together across our diversities, in shared goals of protecting culture and environment and caring for the
well-being of our earth and All Our Relations.
This chapter offers an ethical lens to complement a tendency toward primarily rights-based approaches, which can lean us away from Indigenous worldviews based in interrelationships and favor Western philosophical, legal and
scientific paradigms that are based primarily on the autonomous, rational individual. The legal and ethical principle of consent was chosen here as an example, in the context of Canadian ethics policy initiatives, to explore important
relational dimensions of consenting – representing more of an interactive verb
rather than a transactional noun. In this understanding, consent cannot be reduced to an a cronym, and implementation of consent cannot be understood
only as a signature on a consent form indicating that a checklist of criteria
has been met. The quality and meaningfulness of consent as an element for
protecting Indigenous biocultural rights (along with others, such as ownership
and mutual benefit) can shift when intentionally situated within relationships.
An understanding of how rights and responsibilities are inextricably linked has
the potential to not just bring about justice of rights, but also relational justice
through right relationships.
Health researcher Julie Bull (2018) points out that in health research involving northern Indigenous peoples in Canada, “[r]esearchers are ethically and
culturally obligated to build relationships on a foundation of respect, relevance,
reciprocity, and responsibility in an authentic way”, stating that these qualities
are “imperative” in research involving Indigenous peoples as “a means to respect
and practice self-determination in research”.
In his book, Law’s Indigenous Ethics, Dr. John Borrows (2019) explores ethics
in relation to Indigenous rights and other legal issues through the Anishinaabe
Seven Grandmother and Grandfather Teachings. He concludes:
There is no guarantee that the application of good principles will deliver us
from the challenges we face. […] Yet […] our lives could be much better if
we applied concepts of love, truth, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty and
respect more fully in our law.
(Borrows, 2019, p. 240)
In simplistic terms, a biocultural ethics approach speaks to our choice of values
and principles that underlie our quality of being together in whatever it is that
we are doing together. Biocultural ethics inspires more than just good intentions
and fulfilling obligations, but invites deeper consideration and deliberation of the
ethical opportunities in our work, inviting us to build our awareness and capacities for developing meaningful relationships of care and accountability, as well as
respect, humility, reciprocity and integrity, from which will come ethical actions
and greater capacity to address the biocultural rights of Indigenous peoples as
they relate to protection of culture and environment.