Honouring Ancestral Connections: Indigenous Knowledge, Land, and Cultural Identity

Dear Colleagues,

Genealogy is currently seeking manuscript submissions for the Special Issue “Honouring Ancestral Connections: Indigenous Knowledge, Land, and Cultural Identity”. This Special Issue aims to create a forum to discuss the centrality of ancestral connection for Indigenous Peoples and the interconnectedness of Indigenous knowledge, land and cultural identity. This theme is inclusive of all aspects of Indigenous cultural identity and how we conceptualise our cultural ancestral lineage in ways that bring us into connection and relationality with our lands, our languages, our cultural knowledge and our practices, ceremonies and rituals that affirm Indigenous identities. 

Outline of the Special Issue

1. Focus: This Special Issue focuses on Indigenous cultural identity and our relationality to land, knowledge and cultural identity in ways that honour our ancestral connections
2. Scope: This Special Issue welcomes theoretical, empirical and community-based scholarship that highlights the ways in which Indigenous Peoples conceptualise and engage cultural identity.
3. Highlights Indigenous epistemological, conceptual and cultural practice frameworks.
4. Examines diverse Indigenous contexts from Indigenous perspectives
5. Purpose: The purpose of this Special Issue is to highlight and uplift Indigenous understandings and scholarship in relation to ancestral connections and cultural identity
6. Theoretical Advancement: To support Indigenous and decolonising theoretical and praxis approaches to exploring Indigenous cultural identity and connections to ancestors, land and language.
7. Transformative Praxis: To support Indigenous self-determination aspirations through language, knowledge, cultural identity and ancestral connection.

This Special Issue seeks to conceptualise how Indigenous Peoples understand how we honour our ancestral connections through our relationality to land, knowledge, language and cultural practices. Critical to this theme is the assertion of Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty to define and determine our cultural practices of identity and ancestral connections. This Special Issue focuses on Indigenous assertions of cultural identity that are relational and are determined and defined through our cultural practices and epistemologies. This also includes a critical analysis of colonisation through a decolonising lens and interrupting colonial forms of defining Indigenous identities and which are framed through reductionist approaches that do not serve the interests of Indigenous Peoples. As such, this Special Issue aims to provide a platform for scholarship that articulates expressions of cultural identity that are grounded within Indigenous cultural and political understandings. 

The objective of this Special Issue is to expound the body of literature on Indigenous cultural identity grounded within Indigenous worldviews and that uplifts the centrality of ancestral connectivity and relationality. It also aims to provide a critical discussion of the impacts of colonisation both historically and within contemporary Indigenous experiences that have been grounded within assimilationist approaches that have reconstituted notions of cultural identity that serve the colonial agenda and that work against the self-determination and sovereignty positioning of Indigenous Peoples globally.

Submissions may cover empirical research, conceptual or theoretical analysis, community-based research and practice, creative expression and/or the range of Indigenous research approaches that afford insight into Indigenous ancestral connections and cultural identity.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 250 words summarising their intended contribution. Please send it to Genealogy/the Editorial Office (genealogy@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editor(s) for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

Prof. Dr. Leonie Pihama
Dr. Debra Harry
Prof. Dr. Mera Penehira
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.