The School of Indigenous Peoples and Global Studies undertakes innovative trans-disciplinary research and is engaged in active research and community programs across the world. Our research includes environmental, health and social science research. In this regard, while many wise people have tried to improve life and health outcomes for indigenous people (IP) since colonization, we believe we can greatly enhance life outcomes through integrating the wisdom, traditions, and latest scientific knowledge of Peoples from around the world, thereby enhancing the space for dialogue and learning between Peoples for a more sustainable world.
There are many types of research, as noted in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) resolution on Native American Science and Technology: “Be it resolved that the Council of the Association (a) formally recognize the contributions made by Native Americans in their own traditions of inquiry to the various fields of science, engineering, and medicine, and (b) encourage and support the development and growth of natural and social science programs in which traditional Native American approaches and contributions to science, engineering, and medicine are the subject of serious study and research.” [Adopted by the AAAS Council, January 31, 1975.]
AUSN and the School of Indigenous Peoples and Global Studies shall promote community based participatory research, and the dissemination of the results of research to promote the health and well-being of all Peoples, while recognizing the sacred nature of knowledge, and international ethical standards at every stage of the research endeavor to protect the dignity of individuals and groups associated with the research. This is supported by the U.S. National Institute of Health (http://obssr.od.nih.gov/scientific_areas/methodology/community_based_participatory_research/index.aspx),
“Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an applied collaborative approach that enables community residents to more actively participate in the full spectrum of research (from conception – design – conduct – analysis – interpretation – conclusions – communication of results) with a goal of influencing change in community health, systems, programs or policies. Community members and researchers partner to combine knowledge and action for social change to improve community health and often reduce health disparities.” …
“Advantages of community-based participatory research include:
Joining partners with diverse expertise to address complex public health problems
Improving intervention design and implementation by facilitating participant recruitment and retention
Increasing the quality and validity of research
Enhancing the relevance and use of data
Increasing trust and bridging cultural gaps between partners
Providing resources for the communities involved
Benefiting the community and researchers alike through the knowledge gained and actions taken
The potential to translate research findings to guide the development of further interventions and policy change.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues supporting this collaborative approach”
The School is centered in Bangkok, Thailand were we support students in all degree programs offered by AUSN, as well as AUSN Research Fellows and faculty. We encourages every graduate student to publish the results of their thesis in peer reviewed publications.
Some of the projects of the School of Indigenous Peoples and Global Studies include: Creation of a Repository of Ethical Worldviews of Nature; International Bioethics Survey; Attitudes to Life and Nature; Interventions to Improve Youth Motivation and Healthy Lifestyles; Integration of Research Methodologies and Paradigms for Indigenous Research; Decision-making processes for Community Engagement in Technology Decision-making; and the Integration of Values from Tradition and Modernity in Different Ethnic Communities.
Freedom of research, which is necessary for the progress of knowledge, is part of freedom of thought, and has been used to develop the crops that we depend on for food, the irrigation systems to provide water to agricultural land, medicines, housing, fire and all technology. Research is also conducted to describe the relationships between people, and their behavior. The applications of research shall seek to offer relief from suffering and improve the health of individuals and humankind as a whole. Accordingly, AUSN promotes a range of research methodologies that will be conducted in compliance with the highest ethical and scientific standards, consistent with millennia of research that has been conducted by inquiring human beings in every culture of the world.
Recognizing that research and the resulting applications open up vast prospects for progress in improving the health of individuals and of humankind as a whole, but emphasizing that such research should fully respect human dignity, freedom and human rights, as well as the prohibition of all forms of negative discrimination, AUSN promotes research and its application to clinical medicine, environmental and public health and social and human sciences.
About the Director
The School of Indigenous Peoples and Global Studies is directed by Professor Darryl Macer. His publications are available. Dr. Macer is a world renowned scholar, who served from 2004 until early 2013 as UNESCO Regional Adviser for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific, also heading UNESCO Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), UNESCO Bangkok. He was responsible for coordinating programmes in the 46 countries of Asia-Pacific region, from the Pacific Islands, to Japan, Central Asia. This included countries like China and India with over a billion citizens, to Niue, with 10,000 people in their population. Many have significant indigenous populations, with countries like Papua New Guinea that has a population of 5 million people and 850 official languages.
Dr. Macer is a New Zealand citizen, born in 1962, and is one of the founding persons in the academic field of bioethics. He has a degree of Bachelor of Science with first class honours in Biochemistry from Lincoln College, University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 1983. He was granted a Cambridge Prince of Wales Scholarship to move to Cambridge, U.K where he completed a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and Trinity College, University of Cambridge, U.K. in 1987. He has worked in UK, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Thailand and USA.
He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Kumamoto University, Japan in 2009, in philosophy. Professor Macer is credited with over three hundred academic publications (50 books; 240 Peer Reviewed papers in academic journals and books; and many other academic publications in academic journals). Dr. Macer also serves or has served as an affiliated professor in the University of Kumamoto, Japan; the Institute for Investigation in Bioethics (IIB), Monterrey, Mexico; the Center for Biology and Society, Arizona State University (ASU), USA; the United Nations University (UNU), Japan (since 2002) amongst other Universities. Dr. Macer is also the Secretary of the Asian Bioethics Association, and edits two international peer-reviewed journals. He was the youngest member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee from 1993-1998, and served as a member of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) Committee and the Board of the International Association of Bioethics for a decade.