scholarly journals “Just” Stories or “Just Stories”?: Mixed Media Storytelling as a Prism for Environmental Justice and Decolonial Futures

Author(s):  
Sarah Marie Wiebe

Our lives and the lives of those we study are full of stories. Stories are never mere stories. Qualitative researchers who document, hear, and listen to participant lived-experiences encounter and witness the intimate spaces of people’s everyday lives. Researchers thus find themselves in the position of translator between diverse communities: those affected by policies, the academy and public officials. For academic-activists committed to listening to situated stories in order to improve public policy, several critical questions emerge: How do we do justice to these stories? What are the ethics of engagement involved in telling stories about those who share their knowledges and lived-experiences with us? Can storytelling bridge positivist and post-positivist research methods? Do policymakers listen to stories? How? What can researchers learn from Indigenous storytelling methods to envision decolonial, sustainable futures? To respond to these critical questions, this paper draws from literature in community-engaged research, critical policy studies, interpretive research methods, Indigenous research methods, political ethnography, visual methods and social justice research to argue that stories arenever simply or just stories, but in fact have the potential to be radical tools of change for social and environmental justice. As will be discussed with reference to three mixed media storytelling projects that involved the co-creation of digital stories with Indigenous communities in Canada, stories can intervene on dominant narratives, create space for counternarratives and in doing so challenge the settler-colonial status quo in pursuit of decolonial futures.

Author(s):  
Alexandra S Drawson ◽  
Elaine Toombs ◽  
Christopher J. Mushquash

Indigenous communities and federal funding agencies in Canada have developed policy for ethical research with Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous scholars and communities have begun to expand the body of research regarding their peoples, and novel and innovative methods have begun to appear in the published literature. This review attempts to catalogue the wide array of Indigenous research methods in the peer-reviewed literature and describe commonalities among methods in order to guide researchers and communities in future method development. A total of 64 articles met inclusionary criteria and five themes emerged: General Indigenous Frameworks, Western Methods in an Indigenous Context, Community-Based Participatory Research, Storytelling, and Culture-Specific Methods.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Hammond ◽  
Wendy Gifford ◽  
Roanne Thomas ◽  
Seham Rabaa ◽  
Ovini Thomas ◽  
...  

Research with indigenous peoples worldwide carries long histories of exploitation, distorted representation, and theft. New “indigenizing” methodologies centre the production of knowledge around the processes and knowledges of indigenous communities. Creative research methods involving artistic practices—such as photovoice, journaling, digital storytelling, dance, and theatre—may have a place within these new approaches, but their applications have yet to be systematically explored. We conducted a scoping review of 36 international research studies literature on arts-based research with indigenous peoples. The majority of studies used photovoice and were conducted in Canada, USA, Australia, or New Zealand. We identify five primary fields in which arts-based methods may offer benefit to an indigenous research agenda: (a) participant engagement, (b) relationship building, (c) indigenous knowledge creation, (d) capacity building, and (e) community action. We propose several opportunities to further explore arts-based methods with indigenous peoples.


Author(s):  
Jonna Nyman

Abstract Security shapes everyday life, but despite a growing literature on everyday security there is no consensus on the meaning of the “everyday.” At the same time, the research methods that dominate the field are designed to study elites and high politics. This paper does two things. First, it brings together and synthesizes the existing literature on everyday security to argue that we should think about the everyday life of security as constituted across three dimensions: space, practice, and affect. Thus, the paper adds conceptual clarity, demonstrating that the everyday life of security is multifaceted and exists in mundane spaces, routine practices, and affective/lived experiences. Second, it works through the methodological implications of a three-dimensional understanding of everyday security. In order to capture all three dimensions and the ways in which they interact, we need to explore different methods. The paper offers one such method, exploring the everyday life of security in contemporary China through a participatory photography project with six ordinary citizens in Beijing. The central contribution of the paper is capturing—conceptually and methodologically—all three dimensions, in order to develop our understanding of the everyday life of security.


Author(s):  
Tahir Ali ◽  
Petra Topaz Buergelt ◽  
Douglas Paton ◽  
James Arnold Smith ◽  
Elaine Lawurrpa Maypilama ◽  
...  

The Sendai Framework of Action 2015–2030 calls for holistic Indigenous disaster risk reduction (DRR) research. Responding to this call, we synergized a holistic philosophical framework (comprising ecological systems theory, symbolic interactionism, and intersectionality) and social constructionist grounded theory and ethnography within a critical Indigenous research paradigm as a methodology for exploring how diverse individual and contextual factors influence DRR in a remote Indigenous community called Galiwinku, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Working together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers collected stories in local languages using conversations and yarning circles with 20 community members, as well as participant observations. The stories were interpreted and analysed using social constructivist grounded theory analysis techniques. The findings were dialogued with over 50 community members. The findings deeply resonated with the community members, validating the trustworthiness and relevance of the findings. The grounded theory that emerged identified two themes. First, local Indigenous knowledge and practices strengthen Indigenous people and reduce the risks posed by natural hazards. More specifically, deep reciprocal relationships with country and ecological knowledge, strong kinship relations, Elder’s wisdom and authority, women and men sharing power, and faith in a supreme power/God and Indigenous-led community organizations enable DRR. Second, colonizing practices weaken Indigenous people and increase the risks from natural hazards. Therefore, colonization, the imposition of Western culture, the government application of top-down approaches, infiltration in Indigenous governance systems, the use of fly-in/fly-out workers, scarcity of employment, restrictions on technical and higher education opportunities, and overcrowded housing that is culturally and climatically unsuitable undermine the DRR capability. Based on the findings, we propose a Community-Based DRR theory which proposes that facilitating sustainable Indigenous DRR in Australian Indigenous communities requires Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners to genuinely work together in two-directional and complementary ways.


2005 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 86-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Graham

AbstractThis paper explores the notion of whakapapa as providing a legitimate research framework for engaging in research with Māori communities. By exploring the tradition and meaning of whakapapa, the paper will legitimate how whakapapa and an understanding of whakapapa can be used by Māori researchers working among Māori communities. Therefore, emphasis is placed on a research methodology framed by whakapapa that not only authenticates Māori epistemology in comparison with Western traditions, but that also supports the notion of a whakapapa research methodology being transplanted across the Indigenous world; Indigenous peoples researching among their Indigenous communities. Consequently, Indigenous identity is strengthened as is the contribution of the concept of whakapapa to Indigenous research paradigms worldwide.


Author(s):  
Nancy Langston

In 2011, a company named Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) formed in order to develop the largest open-pit mine in the world—just upstream of the Bad River Band’s reservation on Lake Superior. Owned by Cline Resources Development (a company largely focused on coal), GTAC announced that, even without experience in iron mining, it would mine and process Wisconsin’s taconite ore body to take advantage of Asia’s building and steel commodities boom. The mine would have been sited just upstream of the reservation boundary, and the waters flowing out of the mine site would have contaminated water, fish, and Indigenous communities living downstream. After a multi-year battle, the tribe managed to stop the mine.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Scot Danforth

This article uses historical research methods to explore noted disability rights leader Ed Roberts' performances on the speaker circuit between 1983, when he left his position as director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, and his death in 1995. This article examines how he managed his performed identity, his self as presented on stage, in order to be a disability star. Using his own life story as a poignant example, he narrated an autobiography of how a paralyzed man could live a vigorous, successful, indeed a joyful life. His personal stories communicated his lived experiences of battling discrimination and stereotypes. Roberts skillfully and strategically marshalled his own growing celebrity as the most prominent disabled American while he promoted the cause of civil rights for disabled people.


Author(s):  
Natalie Booth

This chapter outlines the methodology used in this book, including the theoretical framework and methods selected. The aim of the research presented throughout this book was to explore how maternal imprisonment was experienced from a family-centred perspective. The intention was to provide an in-depth analysis of the experiences and perceptions of relatives looking after children whose mothers were in prison. To explain how this was achieved, the chapter is divided into three sections: the first section provides a description of the theoretical framework; the second section is an overview of the research methods adopted; and the third section introduces the caregiving kin and their familial circumstances. While the third section veers away from conventional academic norms, it does enable the participants' lives and experiences to be foregrounded, to act as a point of reference, a reminder of the realities that they were negotiating.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Vicki G. Mokuria ◽  
Alankrita Chhikara

The authors present an overview of narrative research and focus primarily on narrative inquiry, highlighting what distinguishes this approach from other research methods. Narrative inquiry allows scholars to go beyond positivism and explore how research can be conducted based on participants' stories, rather than using a purely scientific methodological approach. This research method acknowledges and honors narrative truths and provides a scholarly framework that makes space for voices often marginalized or excluded when dominant narratives and/or data hold a prominent place in a research agenda. As such, narrative inquiry can be used in academic research to challenge the status quo, thus harnessing research to stretch beyond hegemonic ways of being and knowing. The authors provide a robust overview and conceptualization of this approach, along with foundational concepts and exemplars that comprise this method of research.


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