Brave spirits on new paths: toward a globally relevant paradigm of Indigenous entrepreneurship

This chapter reports a quest to articulate a globally relevant research paradigm of Indigenous entrepreneurship. In this field, there is an expanding volume of activity in at least five areas: journalistic investigation (we have assembled a database of over 800 non-refereed periodical articles on American Indian entrepreneurship alone); government policy and programme creation; attention from the established business community (Allen Consulting, 2001); academic investigation (Anderson, 2002) and, most importantly, by Indigenous communities and leaders (Daly, 1994; Hunter, 1999; Pearson, 1999; Trudgen, 2001). The absence of an explicit, globally relevant, research paradigm prevents the achievement of both cumulative effects accruing to research efforts and useful comparison between various policy and programme initiatives. We can no longer avoid the fundamental research paradigm questions. What are the boundaries of this field? What should be studied within it?