This article examines the impact of conducting narrative research focusing on trauma and healing. It is told through three voices: the study participants who experienced the trauma, the researcher who shared her personal experiences conducting this research, and an academic colleague who acted as a reflective echo making sense of and normalizing the researcher's experience. Issues explored in the article include: harmonic resonance between the story of the participant and the life experiences of the researcher, emotional reflexivity, complex researcher roles and identities, acts of reciprocity that redress the balance of power in the research relationship, the need for compassion for the participants, and self-care for the researcher when researching trauma. The authors conclude that when researching trauma, the researcher is a member of a scholarly community and a human community, and that maintaining the stance as a member of the human community is an essential element of conducting trauma research.

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In many institutions, the institutional review board/research ethics board (IRB/REB) uses the traditional audit approach that emerged from the biomedical community (e.g., Nuremburg Code, Belmont Report) to review the ethical acceptability of research using humans as participants. This approach is guided by participant protection and risk management concerns. This article discusses the approach to ethics review currently being adopted at a large Canadian university in transition from a teaching to a research institution. It articulates the values that guide the REB in its deliberations and explores how these values support a facilitative—rather than an audit—approach to ethics review. Two case studies of innovative qualitative inquiry are discussed to demonstrate how Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) has adopted an approach to ethics review that attempts to encourage, engage, and support qualitative researchers in their research initiatives, while respecting established legal and ethical guidelines targeted primarily at clinical research.

This paper describes the impact of extensive journalistic coverage on a small community in Quebec that experienced the murder of a teenage girl by a local man. Press coverage of the case was intense, as journalists converged on the small rural town to cover the story and the subsequent arrest of the suspect and his parents. In presenting the voices of both local residents and a journalist, this paper illuminates the secondary trauma and symbolic violence that can result from some forms of news coverage of a traumatic event. Five key themes regarding the impact of the media on community residents arose from the data: alienation from the community, anger at the media's public construction of the community, intrusion on community life, intrusion on the private processes of grief, and triggering renewed feelings of loss and grief. Implications for journalists are discussed, including being aware of the dynamics of symbolic violence and secondary trauma and incorporating positionality, empathy, and reflective practice into their reporting praxis.

This instrumental case study explores women's role in efforts to restore a liveable balance within a southern Ontario downtown neighbourhood, between 1989 and 1995. The nature of women's experiences and their ways of work was the embedded analytical feature of the case. Negatively impacted by the presence of crack houses and prostitution, the women who lived in the neighbourhood took leadership in ensuring their immediate environment was more liveable. The study participants included women active in the initiative, residents from the neighbourhood, municipal officials, and various police officers. Strategies used by women in this neighbourhood change initiative included: developing relationships and networks, mobilizing community residents to action, and implementing recreation and safety programmes. The study found values and relationship building were core elements to the women's volunteer leadership approaches, resulting in community building among residents and civic engagement within their neighbourhood. The emerging concept of social capital development is explored. The question emerging from the findings concerns women's leadership approaches in supporting social capital development.Résumé. Cette étude de cas examine le rôle de la femme dans l'effort afin de retrouver un équilibre vivable dans un quartier du centre-ville en Ontario du sud, dans les années 1989 -1995. La nature des expériences de femmes ainsi que leur façon de travailler ont été le trait analytique principal du cas étudié. Ayant subi l'impact négatif des endroits où l'on peut se procurer du crack et de la prostitution, les femmes habitant dans le quartier se sont mises à diriger les choses afin de rendre leur entourage plus habitable. Les sujets de l'étude étaient des femmes qui avaient participé à cette initiative, les résidents du quartier, les dirigeants de la municipalité et plusieurs agents de police. Des stratégies utilisées par ces femmes dans leur lutte pour un meilleur quartier incluent: le développement des relations et des réseaux de communication, le mobilisation des membres de la communauté à prendre une action contre l'état des choses, ainsi que la mise au point des programmes de récréation et de sécurité. Les résultats de l'étude confirment que les valeurs et la création des relations entre les groupes mentionnés ci-dessus ont été des éléments essentiels des approches féminines et bénévoles au commandement, les approches dont les résultats incluent: la création de liens communautaires entre les résidents et l'engagement de ceux-ci au sein de leur quartier. On explore aussi la notion (émergeante de l'étude) du développement du capital social y est aussi examinée. La question imposée par les résultats de l'étude est celle du rôle des approches féminines au commandement comme le soutien du développement du capital social.

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