Stories of Work and the Four Rs

As stated by Aikenhead & Mitchell (2011), “while no two [Indigenous] groups are the same, they all share commonalities in their own tribal ways of living in nature and in their Indigenous ways of understanding how to live” (p. 72). These ways of thinking can be taken to represent a sort of universal set of Indigenous values, deemed the Four R’s by Indigenous scholars (eg. Kirkness & Barnhardt, 2001; Archibald, 2008; Bell, 2013). This paper looks at the four R’s as conceptualized by Verna J. Kirkness & Ray Barnhardt (2001), as well as by Nicole Bell (2013). These suggested constructs are discussed in relation to two experiences I’ve had with my own father. These experiences focus on how his Anishinaabe values overlap in the context of doing work, in both a traditional context and a more Western context. Based on these experiences, I discuss the feasibility of applying the 4 Rs as an organizing framework for Indigenous work psychology.