Researching the living past: discovering past occurrences through conversational inquiry

To talk about Indigenous history is a contradiction in terms. History has long been used as a colonial weapon against Indigenous peoples and their cultures. In fact, a western construction of history seems to be all that ‘remains’ of Indigenous peoples. We argue that to know the actual past of Indigenous peoples, one needs to know their present, one needs to know their stories; and the best way to learn is to engage in conversation with them. This chapter introduces a conversational inquiry approach to the study of Indigenous past occurrences grounded on four principles: contextual sensitivity, relational connectivity, dialogic interaction and reflexive engagement.