Unit 2, Assignment 2 Research Interest

Assignment 2 – Clarifying your research interest

After completing my concept map, I came up with the following research questions:

1. How does economic development help indigenous people?
   2. How does economic development help indigenous people in capacity building?
   3. How does economic development build healthy indigenous communities?
   4. What is the best model of indigenous economic development that will help build a healthy and thriving community?

The research question I feel strongest about is question number 4. My justification for this question being the strongest, is because while there is much information out there about why economic development is important to First Nations, there are limited resource materials available that speak about best practices and or best models. There are many questions that come to mind in this research:

1. Most models are heavily interwoven into the decisions set out by indigenous governments but are these always the best business models?
2. Do community elections impact their decision making?
3. Are they building economic wealth only or are they also effecting change in their communities by creating employment opportunities?
4. How are indigenous communities leveraging rights and title to support economic growth?
5. Urban indigenous communities have the advantage of leveraging their lands however how to indigenous communities outside of urban centers leverage the opportunity to get involved with economic development?
6. Is it indigenous people making decisions on economic development for their communities or is it non-indigenous people and does this matter?
7. What unique ways are communities building capacity?
8. What does success look like?
9. How long does it take to build a successful model?
10. How did any given community get started?
11. Are there any lessons learned?
12. How has the market procurement policies impacted the growth of indigenous business?
13. What capital was utilized to get started in economic development?
14. Is the nation still supporting the economic development entity? If not, when did the financial support stop?

I anticipate the need to research answers by coming up with a questionnaire for the following:

1. Literature review – this will be difficult as recently I have been speaking with a researcher from Simon Fraser University whom shared that there are limited studies available. So limited that there is only one well known article which is from Harvard however is not necessarily applicable to a Canadian Indigenous community
2. Speak to indigenous people – inquire how economic development has helped them personally as well as how it has impacted their community.
3. Speak with other indigenous economic development companies (urban, suburban and remote) to review various models – Urban/Suburban might include – Seyem’ Qwantlen, Osoyoos, Musqueam, Tsawwassen, Metis, Squamish, etc. Remote – Komox, Lytton, Merritt.
4. Professional Institutions such as the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, BC economic development association, New Relationship Trust.
5. Speak with industry professionals doing business with First Nations such as banks, construction companies, BC Hydro, Law Firms. What are these institutions seeing as successful models?
6. Interview elders
7. Interview government representatives that put out tenders with priority to indigenous people, or representatives that manage grants to help indigenous people.