Blair Many Fingers

Blair Many Fingers (Blackfoot name: Sisi’ksi) is a Master of Arts graduate student in the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought program at the University of Lethbridge. His thesis research is grounded in Indigenous research methodologies and is guided by Blackfoot ethical principles including respect for Blackfoot sovereignty, self-determination, and nation-to-nation research relationships. His work examines the decolonization of Western-centric heritage resource management by centring Blackfoot-specific knowledge systems, legal traditions, and epistemologies.

His research focuses on Áísínai’pi/Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park, a Blackfoot sacred landscape that holds the highest concentration of sináákssiistsi (petroglyphs and pictographs) on the North American Plains. Rather than treating these cultural materials as archaeological data alone, his approach understands them as living knowledge embedded within Blackfoot relationships to place, story, and ancestral presence.

Many Fingers’ work unsettles dominant Náápia’pii iitáíssksinima’tstohkio’p (Western academic culture) by moving beyond recognition-based and extractive research models toward approaches grounded in relational accountability, reciprocity, relevance, respect, and reverence, as articulated in Indigenous methodology scholarship. He is committed to a Blackfoot-specific research paradigm and methodology that asserts Indigenous data sovereignty and affirms Blackfoot authority over how knowledge is generated, interpreted, governed, and shared.

Guided by a practice of “rebellious harmony,” his research centres Blackfoot protocols, values, people, and ancestors, and prioritizes long-term relational responsibilities over institutional timelines or disciplinary norms. His research interests include Indigenous storytelling and storywork, place-based knowledge, Indingeous literature, Blackfoot research methodologies, Niitsí’powahsin (Blackfoot language), and Kípaitápiiyssinnooni (Our Way of Life).