The Power and Possibility of Connecting With Stakeholders Through Culturally Responsive Methodology

• In Event: Authentic Community With Stakeholders: Innovative Research Through Culturally Responsive Methodologies Re-Presented Through Arts-Based Inquiry

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand how rural Fijian educators
preserve culture through their curriculum as the nation rapidly modernizes. This study is contextualized in a postcolonial framework that notes the Western world’s history of conquest and domination (Said, 1978; Bhabha, 1984; and Spivak, 1988; Nabobo-Baba, 2006; Smith, 2012), and acknowledges the detrimental impacts colonization has on culture. This study is also contextualized using modernization theory (Wang, 2009; Paliwal & Paliwal, 2011; Brock & Alexiadou, 2013). With colonial schooling as a forerunner to modernization, it is clear that there is a connection between colonial schooling and Fiji’s current state of modernization.
Emergent Framework: The researcher used arts based research (Leavy, 2015), specifically narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1986, 1990, 2000) framed with culturally responsive methodology (Berryman et al, 2013). Through employing an arts based culturally responsive methodology, the researcher strove to decolonize the study by waiting to be invited to conduct research, sharing power and knowledge, and co-constructing both the research question and the research study. This presentation focuses on the use of CRM in this study through an artistic re-presentation of the data.
Methods and Modes of Inquiry: Data collection took place in Fiji in July 2017. Each participant was interviewed a minimum of three times, and each interview lasted as long as the participant wished. The interviews typically lasted in the range from 45 minutes to 2 hours in duration. Upon the completion of data collection, the interviews were coded using the coding cycles as outlined in Saldaña (2016).
Data Sources and Materials: The data revealed four main findings including themes of resilience, courage, loyalty, and agency. These findings will be further discussed in the re-presentation through the use of talanoa, an indigenous research methodology of storytelling (Nabobo-Baba, 2006; M’Balla-Ndi & Newlands, 2016). Under the principles of talanoa, the researcher is co-constructor of knowledge alongside the participants. The re-presentation of the data will include storytelling, dialogical poetry, and aesthetic elements to connect the audience to the participants in this study.
Results and Significance: Through the use of arts based research and culturally responsive methodology (Berryman et al, 2013) new knowledge is produced only through relationship, shared power and resources, and through a co-construction of new knowledge. Additionally, there is a need for indigenous Fijians to publish post-colonial scholarship on their country as a means to reclaim and reimagine the curriculum. The role of non-indigenous researchers, also known as ally scholars, can be to support the scholarship of indigenous researchers, to facilitate spaces for critical dialogue for indigenous educators, and to promote a need for more indigenous research (Brophey & Raptis, 2016; Burarrwanga et al., 2013; Charles, Harris, & Carlson, 2016; Davis & Shpuniarsky, 2010; Howard, 2016; McGloin, 2009; Phillips, Phillips, Whatman, & McLaughlin, 2007; Stairs, 2004). In Fiji, there is a need to return to indigenous knowledge in the school curriculum as a means of preserving the cultural past and present as Fiji moves into the future.

Author

• Elizabeth Yomantas, Pepperdine University