Where Are We Going? Reimagining Educational Research as a Journey With Community

• In Event: At the Crossroads: Enacting Anticolonial Responsibility in Social Studies Scholarship Through Community-Centered Participatory Research

Abstract

As a white settler from a middle class background, educated in predominantly white universities emphasizing dominant methods of qualitative inquiry, my schooling and teaching experiences have been complicit in Indigenous erasure. Only in doctoral work did I begin to understand settler colonialism as a structure rather than an event (Wolfe, 2006). My Slavic, Irish, English, and German ancestors’ journeys west revealed these structures: as they increasingly benefitted from institutions and privileges of whiteness through assimilation (Brodkin, 1998), and investment (Lipsitz, 2006; Moreton-Robinson, 2015) in white ways of being (Leonardo, 2009) and land theft.

When designing my dissertation study, I struggled to see where I could contribute to anticolonial education research. A participatory research design allowed me to find a useful place while centering local Native knowledges and Indigenous research methodologies. Through 18 months of preparation guided by elder protocols, we created an eight member, intergenerational Native educator advisory group to guide the qualitative study. I secured gifts, meals, and stipends to offset burdens for advisors and facilitate reciprocal relationships. Advisors’ and other Indigenous teachers’ examples and guidance redirected me when I struggled. After a findings review session, I collaborated with one advisor to develop a figure representing the themes that aligned with local Native epistemologies of time. The final image of a cedar centered the collective, relational work: honoring local Native peoples, knowledges, Lands, and futures. Coauthoring the first publication with two interested advisors also ensured that the words, tone, and implications reflected advisors’ values and priorities rather than simply my own.


Methodologies that privilege relational validity (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015)—such as participatory research—embrace a dynamic, collaborative design; community leadership; and situated knowledges. While participatory research journeys do not typically follow a pre-determined route, they are not directionless. Effective implementation of participatory research requires flexible planning, multiple forms of engagement, and layered structures of accountability with and to local Native communities.

Because they are usually not fully planned at their start, participatory orientations can seem to be undesirable research pathways for academic scholars, who are often bound to dissertation or tenure/promotion timelines, grant requirements, or complex workload schedules. Participatory research efforts take more time to navigate, demand more flexibility and on-the-ground engagement, and can even be more professionally risky (especially for pre-tenure faculty). However, since relational research can enhance rigor, trustworthiness, and accuracy, particularly within research with Indigenous communities, the participatory path is essential in terms of enacting anticolonial responsibility (Authors; Wilson, 2008).

In Indigenous communities, knowledge must be “transferred” responsibly according to community-specific protocols, and participatory relationships are essential to ensure that responsibility is upheld. Without these habits and commitments, research that aims to be participatory and anticolonial may fail to recognize, let alone center, Indigenous knowledges. Beyond mere involvement or inclusion of community members, participatory anticolonial researchers must walk a collective path, with those who have more expertise and knowledge.

Author

• Jenni Conrad, Temple University