Doing Participatory Evaluation: from “Jagged World Views” to Indigenous Methodology

Abstract

The paper will present findings from a Social Science and Humanities Research (SSHRC) funded participatory evaluation conducted over the past four years in the Cree nation of Wemindji in Quebec, Canada. COOL (Challenging Our Own Limits) or “Nigawchiisuun” in Cree, was launched in 2003 as part of a broader program of governance initiatives within Wemindji. As a key component of this new governance program, COOL was to address the need for after-school care within the community for parents, as well as to engage with the recurring problem of low retention rates in school. In consultation with the Band Council of the Cree Nation of Wemindji (James Bay), the Deputy Chief at the time (Rodney Mark) – who was elected Chief in 2006 – established a COOL committee to oversee the design, organisation, implementation and running of the program. Unlike the other eight Cree communities of the James Bay, Wemindji decided to fund and run its own program based on values, customs, and traditions that have been established through consultations with elders, parents, and other interested groups within the community. This has made COOL a distinctly homegrown, autonomous, self-determined Cree program. The paper will not only report on principal themes and issues connected with the establishment and administration of COOL, but will also discuss why a participatory evaluation has been used to assess its effectiveness as a social/educational program.

The ‘Come and Go’ Syndrome of Teachers in Remote Indigenous Schools: Listening to the Perspective of Indigenous Teachers about What Helps Teachers to Stay and What Makes Them Go

“…Broadening the research focus to include research with Indigenous teachers posed methodological challenges for a non-Indigenous researcher. Conscious of the postcolonial discourse regarding the detrimental impact of ‘research’ being ‘done to’ Indigenous peoples across the world and the fact that ‘research’ is probably ‘one of the dirtiest words in the Indigenous world's vocabulary’ (Smith, 1999, p. 1), appropriate choice of methodology needed to be considered (Fredericks, 2007; Jordan, Stocek, Mark, & Matches, 2009; Smith, 1999; Wilson, 2001). The research needed to be respectful of the worldviews, cultures, languages and knowledges of the Indigenous participants, but also conscious of how to ‘do research’ mindful of all of these things including: What a non-Indigenous researcher needs to be aware of when researching with Indigenous peoples; how non-Indigenous researchers can improve their practices with Indigenous peoples; and, most fundamentally, whether it is appropriate for non-Indigenous researchers to be involved in research with Indigenous peoples.…”

Rebraiding Photovoice: Methodological Métissage at the Cultural Interface

“…While praxis aims to empower those involved, if the way in which empowerment is framed within the research differs greatly from participants’ personal and communal conceptions of what becoming agents could or should entail, the research runs the risk of disempowering more than empowering (Jordan et al, 2009). The notions found within praxis of (neo)liberal and egalitarian democracy often undermine Indigenous claims to sovereignty by failing to critically problematise both its own discourses around freedom and autonomy, as well as those centred around land and place when applied into Indigenous contexts.…”

“…In response to mis-, missed, and over-representations, ‘there is a growing commitment among [Indigenous] communities to constructively engage with issues by generating solutions that are local, Indigenous and self-determined’ (Jordan, Stocek, Mark, & Matches, 2009, p. 74). One of the ways that Indigenous communities are ‘researching back’ (Smith, 1999) is through self-representation via the production of countervisuals by adopting and adapting visual research methodologies such as photovoice, ‘a fairly simple technique that involves participants in taking photos of objects and people that represent particular elements of their everyday life’ (Allen & Hutchinson, 2009, p. 121).…”

“…The defining of community concerns by researchers is especially significant as photovoice projects often centre deficit narratives rather than, or in addition to, much needed stories of survival and resilience (Truchon, 2007). Despite these possible pitfalls and problematics, there is nonetheless consensus from a growing group of scholars who see and put to work the potential of the visual for research with/in Indigenous communities who work within and against the using and abusing of participatory visual methodologies, and who recognise that such methodologies require the inflection of decolonial goals and other inter-connected objectives (e.g., working against neo-liberalism, anti-racism, addressing patriarchy; Battiste et al, 2005; Castleden et al, 2008; Higgins, 2014; Jordan et al, 2009).…”

World Social Science Report 2013

“…(Wolf, Allice and Bell, 2012); sustainable development (Cajete, 2012); food security, particularly the effects of "nutrition transition" (Kuhnlein et al, 2004); and the rising incidence and prevalence of diabetes mellitus (Boston et al, 1997;Jordan et al, 2000). Through participatory research, which repositions aboriginal people as co-investigators rather than viewing them as "objects of research", current approaches attempt to acknowledge and respect First Nations' cultural traditions regarding knowledgeproducing practices (Jordan et al, 2009). …”