Theoretical approaches influence research design, engagement, and outcomes. The relevance of critical theoretical and methodological approaches to Indigenous women's health and well-being research has increased in the last decade. It is difficult to assess the ways in which theoretical lenses can effectively interrupt and challenge systemic erasure, ongoing harms, and deficit-based (ill-health-centered) approaches to Indigenous women's health and well-being, a fact that is not broadly acknowledged. We conducted a scoping review to (a) map the type and frequency of critical theoretical lenses used by researchers focused on Indigenous women's health and well-being in North America over the past two decades and (b) identify which topics tend to use which theoretical lens. We have conducted a scoping review to examine peer-reviewed articles from eight electronic databases. In the articles selected over 2000-2021, we found an increase in the use of community-based participatory research, decolonial lenses, and feminist lenses. Over the last decade, there has been a decrease in quantitative social science approaches. While a range of critical theoretical and methodological approaches are increasingly being applied, the use of cultural resurgence and Indigenous feminism in health research is not widespread.
Keywords: Indigenous women’s health and well-being; Indigenous women’s wellness; critical theory; cultural resurgence.