Indigenous-informed strengths-based approaches to supporting customers experiencing vulnerability in service ecosystems

This paper assembles key Indigenous concepts and culturally adapts them into resources for use by mainstream services to support all customers experiencing vulnerability. Using Bartlet et al.’s (2012) Two-Eyed Seeing approach, eight influential Indigenous concepts were chosen for their capacity to extend existing service thinking beyond Western assumptions, being: cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), radical hope (Lear, 2006), survivance (Vizenor, 1999), thrivance (Baumann, 2023), relationality (Moreton-Robinson, 2017), storying (Phillips & Bunda, 2018), Dadirri (Ungunmerr-Baumann, 2022) and Indigenous self-determination (Rademaker & Rowse, 2020). Drawing on the author’s lived experience as an Indigenous marketing scholar, eight principles, a micro-meso-macro framework, and a reflective questioning tool were developed to assist service marketers. As Indigenous knowledges are inherently strengths-based and holistic, these resources apply across all forms of customer vulnerability and service ecologies. A positionality-informed protocol guides appropriate use across Indigenous and non-Indigenous service contexts. These Indigenous-informed resources provide the opportunity to enrich service ecologies.