Somewhere Recordings: Land- and Place-Based "Research" Relationships

• In Event: 66.053 - Turning Away From Text in Qualitative Research: Possibilities in Image- and Audio-Based Methods

Abstract

This presentation examines the methodology of the audio recordings that are transmitted between the multiple community organizations that comprise the Land Relationships Super Collective – which is a network of land-based projects… a contingent collaboration of autonomous efforts to decolonize, rematriate, and heal land. This network of independent organizations include diverse participants across North America, such as: Back 2 the Land: 2 Land 2 Furious – a project of two Métis women moving back to their Indigenous lands (Walker, 2016); the Black/Land Project which “gathers and analyzes stories about the relationship between Black people, land and place” (What is the Black Land Project?, 2011), and the Long Spoon Collective – a project of “relocalizing our systems of energy, food, transportation, shelter, economic exchange, and health care … where we live, the Hudson Valley” (Long Spoon Collective Overview, n.d.).

These values of contingent collaboration (Tuck et al, 2014) and autonomy (Esteva, 2001), as well as the goals of the super collective to share practical advice and strategies for resources support, bring to the foreground the ethics of research methods that minimalize impact on community groups’ time/resources while maximizing the usefulness of shared knowledge. In refusing (Simpson, 2007; Tuck & Yang, 2014) the intrusive “need to know” and “need to tell” approach that characterizes much of qualitative research in Indigenous and racialized communities (Robin Kelly, 1997; Simpson, 2007), the methodologies of the Super Collective include private, shared transmissions that are only for the ears and eyes of the participating organizations – alongside public websites of learnings and resources that can be shared more openly. “Somewhere Recordings” are monthly, 10-15 minute, digital communiqués by the participants that describe their place-based work, made while walking or (safely) driving or paddling through the place that they are talking about.

This presentation engages critical methodological questions in qualitative research, such as refusal, non-text-based research, participatory action research, and the role of academic institutions in decolonizing place-based work.

Author

• K. Wayne Yang, University of California - San Diego