Visual Participatory Research with Indigenous Youth: Do researchers know enough to be Appropriate or Risk Appropriating?

• In Event: Visual Methods in Qualitative Research

Abstract

Based on previous work and observations of urban Indigenous youth documenting their perspectives through photo-voice and video-voice, this paper anticipates and explores the ethical challenges that arise when (non-Indigenous) researchers desire or expect marginalized participants to reveal through visual participatory research (VPR) methods their points-of-viewing (how they perceive the world), or their lived experiences, subjectivities, and identities. We explore ethical problems that non-Indigenous researchers, teachers and Indigenous youth participants encounter through an analysis of two case studies of photo-voice research. As a retrospective critical analysis, we explore how visual participatory research (VPR) methods can be appropriate tools for reconciliation and strengthening Indigenous-non-Indigenous relations, but also how they risk becoming tools of appropriation and (neo-) colonialism.

Authors

• Lisa M. Korteweg, Lakehead University

• Cynthia C. Nicol, The University of British Columbia

• Marc Roderick Higgins, The University of British Columbia