EVANS READING

Common Insights, Differing Methodologies

Toward a Fusion of Indigenous Methodologies, Participatory Action Research, and White Studies in an Urban Aboriginal Research Agenda

Key Ideas/Concepts and Definitions:

Indigenous Mythologies (IM): research by and for indigenous people drawn on traditions. The voices of the indigenous people are to be preserved.

Participatory Action Research (PAR): framework that highlights the centre of power in social construction of knowledge. Practices promote social justice with a goal of changing relations of power.

White Studies (WS): social constructions of dominant racial groups. It is known as a system tied to social status.

Thesis:

In this paper there are three research approaches that are argues to be more effective when fused together in terms of collective work with the indigenous community. A case study is presented about a collective project with a urban Aboriginal community in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada.

Major Arguments:

IM rejects research ON indigenous communities
IM and PAR have had some negative reactions for being overly relativistic
National funding agencies see how important and effective it is to include indigenous communities in describing, defining, and developing research questions (Aboriginal Capacity and Developmental Research Environments is a current example)
IM example: The Institute for Aboriginal Health located in Point Gray has a framework that consists of the 4 R’s: Respect,, Relevance, Reciprocity and Responsibility
PAR highlights the centre of power in the social construction of knowledge and seeks emancipatory knowledge
PAR contains three key features: commitment to social transformation , commitment to valuing lived experiences, commitment to collaboration and power sharing in research
The Barriers and Opportunities for Health and Social Services Delivery to the Urban Aboriginal Communities of the Okanagan Valley project is a community centred project with a variety of team members involved
This study includes all three research methods: IM, PAR and WS
It is working to study the social and health service delivery system that Aboriginals’ encounter
The most important part of the study is that Urban Aboriginal organizations and researcher are key, valued, equal contributing members of the research team

Reference:

Evans, M., Hole, R., Berg, L. D., Hutchinson, P., & Sookraj, D. (2009). Common insights, differing methodologies: Toward a fusion of indigenous methodologies, participatory action research, and white studies in an urban aboriginal research agenda. Qualitative Inquiry, 15(5), 893-910.