Effectively Engaging with Indigenous Communities through Multi-Methods Qualitative Data Collection and an Engaged Communications Plan

Abstract

A research project on social and economic capacity building through Aboriginal entrepreneurship employed a highly engaged approach with communities in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. The involved communities were viewed as research partners, and the research team applied a comprehensive communications plan to provide community members with relevant and timely information about the project and summaries of its outcomes as those results emerged. The study was designed to empower those who traditionally had been viewed as participants on whom research could be conducted, and ensure that the research was instead conducted with and for them. This research project encouraged youth and adults to express their perspectives in new and engaging ways that gave them the opportunity to more meaningfully have their voices heard. One important outcome from engaging more with communities was that research team members felt more engaged with their own project.

The Case for Using an Intergenerational Multi-Methods Approach in Community-Based Research

“…Participant-led research approaches, including photo elicitation methods like Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) and participatory video methods like Videovoice (Catalani et al, 2012) and OurVoice (Swanson et al, 2016), have been used to empower youth and adults as co-researchers (Strack et al, 2004) and provide Indigenous communities with greater control and collective ownership over the research process while reducing the traditional researcher roles (Flicker et al, 2014;MacDonald et al, 2015;Riecken et al, 2006). Much of the literature surrounding peer-led approaches features youth-based studies that can provide young people with opportunities to share their perspectives, reverse power relations, and learn how to create change through having their voices heard and acting as their own advocates (Fenge et al, 2011;Strack et al, 2004;Woodgate et al, 2020).…”

“…In addition to the community participants, the Videovoice approach included academics, filmmakers and support staff, and a week of training and orientation (Catalani et al, 2012). Another method developed from the Photovoice example is OurVoice, a “peer-to-peer video capture interview exercise” (Swanson et al, 2016, p. 45) where participants who already know each other interview each other – without researchers present – in physical settings familiar to them while capturing the exchanges using video cameras. No training is provided prior to the peer-to-peer interviews, other than to inform the participants of the interview questions they are to ask one another and to describe the time and general location parameters for the exercise (Swanson et al, 2016).…”