Preparing for Interviews: Approaches to Community-Based Research

1. Preparing for Interviews: Approaches to Community-Based Research Rob McMahon For: CMNS 801

2. Presentation Focus • Issues to consider during the lead-up to interviews • Indigenous communities, though applies to other “marginalized” communities • Methodological debate: between traditional positivist research and community-based research • Concludes with an overview of the ‘Forests and Oceans for the Futures’ project

3. Positivism Overview • Interviews approached ‘objectively’ • Researchers as disinterested observers, interviewees as ‘objects’ • Process detached from contextual influences • Researchers have a ‘right’ to knowledge acquired

4. Positivism Approach • Researchers design projects in an institution separate from the field • The team then enters the field to conduct interviews • Once data is collected, researchers leave the community and return to the institution, where data is analyzed, conclusions drawn and findings published. • This approach was required to fulfill the criteria of dispassionate, objective social science.

5. Positivism Problems • Negative effects for the interviewees/communities • Criticism rooted in the reality that ‘objects’ are human subjects affected by the process of research and the impact of findings • Response: guidelines towards more reflexive research created by groups like the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology

6. Colonial Research I • The positivist approach has been criticized as a colonial approach to research. • “From the vantage point of the colonized…the term ‘research’ is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonization” (Smith, 1, 2002). • Menzies: positivism promotes the interests of researchers over those of the communities being researched • Researchers impose themselves in an unequal power relationship. • “There are still many researchers who continue to conduct research on aboriginal peoples as opposed to with us” (Menzies, 21, 2001).

7. Colonial Research II • Also privileges Western information over indigenous understandings. • Positivist research involves a culturally-specific system of classification and representation • Taiaiake Alfred: the problem is the extraction of indigenous knowledge from local communities and its categorization and appropriation by ‘outsider’ researchers • “Despite all the wisdom available within indigenous traditions, most Native lives continue to be lived in a world of ideas imposed on them by others” - (Alfred, 70, 1999)

8. Community-based Overview I Response: researchers developed new approaches to interviews: 1. Withdrawing from research with, for or among ‘marginalized’ peoples 2.  Ignoring the critique and continuing to conduct researcher-led, standard research; or 3.  Engaging in self-consciously cooperative and/or community-based research. - (Menzies 2001)

9. Community-based Overview II “A collective process of inquiry that is opposed to the individualistic nature of traditional research methodologies. As a collective process, therefore, it rejects the separation of roles of researcher and researched, and denies the authority of an individual researcher to determine the purposes, processes, and products of the investigation” - (Henry, 116, 1997)

10. Community-based Overview III Three different conceptions of the researcher’s role: • Researcher as “objective ombudsman • Researcher as insider • Researcher as activist • In this sense, non-indigenous researchers can engage in effective indigenous research.

11. Community-based Benefits • More detailed, specific, richer understandings than generalized research findings allow • The ‘object of study’ contributes to the research process, avoiding definitions imposed from outside • Community members point researchers to information that “outsiders” might otherwise miss • However, given its abandonment of ‘detached objectivity’, community-based research “would never be permitted in a positivistic research project” (LeCompte and Schensul, 50, 1999)

12. Community-based Approach: Access • “How on earth do you approach (almost) complete strangers and persuade them to talk to you about their thoughts, feelings and actions?” (Crang and Cook, 61, 2007) • Begins formally, through a letter signifying the intent of the research, the proposed methodology and potential outcomes • Contact ‘gatekeepers’, like formal community governance organizations, who offer access to the greater community and act as advisers • Flexibility and respect are key

13. Community-based Approach: Protocols • Protocols “clearly identify the rights, responsibilities and obligations of research partner and researcher” (Menzies, 21, 2001) • Researchers should be prepared to modify their research plan based on the needs of the community • The key test: “whether the researcher is positioned to quit the research project at the community’s suggestion” (McDonald, 85-6, 2004) • Many First Nations communities have initiated protocols that researchers must follow

14. Community-based Approach: Consultation • Refine and modify the research plan in consultation with the community. • Moves beyond ‘formal’ channels to include ‘informal’ leaders and individual community members •  Negotiations with interviewees might include discussions around the interview process or the environments where research will be conducted •  Menzies suggests involving community members in the research team

15. Community-based Approach: Research • After access is secured, information gathering, the writing, analysis, revision and distribution begins • Remain in contact with the community to allow for their participation in the knowledge creation process • This connection must continue even after research is complete

16. Community-based Approach: Challenges • Logistics: more patience and commitment • Affects the independent pursuit of knowledge, and can constrain research • ‘Ownership’ of research: must be open to collective ownership. Could result in conflicts between institutional and community protocols • Impossible to show commitment to value-free ‘research for research’s sake’ (due to activist approach) • Recognize the inherently political nature of research. Ex. in indigenous communities, research often has implications for the recognition of existing Aboriginal title. • Political problems within the community. Community-based research “can be complicated when research partners cannot agree among themselves” (LeCompte and Schensul, 198, 1999)

17. Case Study: Forests & Oceans for the Future Menzies: • Anthropologist, indigenous background • Grew up in Prince Rupert on British Columbia’s North Coast Research interest: ‘Ecological Anthropology’, which works with indigenous communities to explore opportunities for nature resource management.

18. Traditional Ecological Knowledge • A branch of indigenous or local-level knowledge • “Local lore drawing on centuries of observation and engagement with particular environments. For the past twenty years, many policymakers have advocated integrating TEK into land management” - (Brown, 206, 2003)

19. TEK - Challenges • Tends to be tacit rather than explicit • Context-dependent rather than free-floating • Researchers can obscure the meanings of indigenous understandings • Can violate indigenous intellectual property rights • Can result in the circulation of culturally sensitive information For these reasons, most research projects involving TEK implement a rigorous standard of community collaboration

20. Forests & Oceans for the Future • A collaboration between members of the Gitxaala community and university-based researchers • Researchers interviewed community members about their traditional knowledge of local natural resource sectors, such as forestry and fishing • Research designed for three purposes: applied research into local ecological knowledge, policy development and evaluation, and public education activities

21. Protocols • Multiple layers of protocol required to secure full community support • Tsimshian Protocol: “acknowledges the power structures of the community, including…customary structures primarily empowered by the feast hall, structures primarily empowered under Canadian law, and individuals empowered by being part of the community” - (McDonald, 89, 2004).

22. Negotiating Access Researchers met with representatives and secured permission from a number of community organizations: • administrative institutions • indigenous institutions • individual community members

23. Administrative Groups • The Tsimshian Tribal Council • The Kitkatla Band Council • The Gitxaala Treaty Office (representative John Lewis) • The research team met with members of the Band Council twice • They presented the project and negotiated the wording of consent forms, the structure and form of questions, and the recruiting of community-based researchers   • Concern: the final form of research. Researchers agreed to develop First Nations curriculum materials for use in local schools.

24. Indigenous Institutions • Menzies secured further permission from customary community leaders • Community elders and hereditary chiefs (the Smgyigyet, Lik’agyet and Sigyidmhana’a) • Concern: intellectual and natural resource property rights • Researchers restricted interview questions to non-medicinal plants, animals, and sea resources

25. Individual Community Members • “In our research with Gitxaala…the issue of individual permission is very different than in the adjoining non-Indigenous society” - (Menzies, 24, 2001)

26. Interview Requirements • Researchers demonstrated they secured permission from community organizations • If requested, interviews took place with extended family members present • Interviews were conducted by two team members: one community-based and the other university-based • Interviews took place in their homes or the Band Office, and if it was easiest, in the S’malgyax language

27. Project Summary • Attempted to ensure the research project filled the requirements of community-based and indigenous research •  The research project was beneficial for all parties involved, and encouraged the start of a long-term relationship between the university and the community •  However, at times the process was long and frustrating, and resulted in tension with funding agencies

28. Questions/Comments • Faced with these considerations, should ‘mainstream’ researchers research and write about marginalized peoples? • Do the benefits of community-based research outweigh its problems? • Given the practical realities of research (funding cycles, timing, etc) is community-based research possible?