In their Guidelines for Ethical Aboriginal Research, the Aboriginal Health Research Review Committee proposed that researchers work within the spirit of the seven grandfather teachings in order to ensure that research is ethically engaged from a First Nations perspective (Noojmowin Teg Health Centre, 2003). These seven teachings – respect, wisdom, love, honesty, humility, bravery, and truth – are interconnected and have collaboratively informed all phases of the current research, through community guidance and insight. Specific examples of how each teaching was interpreted and enacted within the research are outlined, though it should be acknowledged that the strategies overlapped and intersected with one another.
First, the teaching of respect highlights the need to respect the spirituality, beliefs, and values of Aboriginal people within their communities, as well as the stories that these individuals may share about their lives. In this project, respect for local Aboriginal values, customs, and processes was enacted through an Indigenous decolonizing methodology. By centralizing local ways of thinking and doing, the Indigenous methodology was designed to be more engaging for the participants, enabling them to share their stories and knowledge in more meaningful and culturally affirming ways. The Aboriginal researchers were instrumental in bringing this
Indigenous methodology forward from within the community, and they continued to inform the project and ensure that it was unfolding in ways that were respectful of the local cultural context and the lives of local people. As an example, the Aboriginal researchers suggested that
community research assistants be engaged in the data analysis stage of the research to ensure that the participants’ stories were being interpreted and presented meaningfully, from a local
perspective. Respect was therefore established as an ongoing tenet throughout the project. Second, the teaching of wisdom centralizes the value of experiential knowledge. In this project, the research team recognized the power of Aboriginal community members’ local
experiential knowledge for opening up opportunities for community enhancement, as articulated through a praxis orientation. The aim was to elicit Aboriginal athletes’ stories of relocation so that applied community strategies could be developed for better supporting and motivating on- reserve youth in pursuing their dreams outside of the community. To this end, the Aboriginal athletes were engaged as the experts of their lives. The open-ended nature of the mandala
drawing process and conversational interviews enabled the participants to exert greater control in terms of deciding how to share their experiences in ways that were personally meaningful and aligned with their Indigenous worldviews. Through these processes, the participants were able to provide richer experiential insights into the challenges and benefits of sport relocation as well as the factors that facilitate success – insights which resonated more deeply within the local
community context and catalyzed local change efforts. Thus, in contrast to traditional “scientific” research approaches, this project highlighted the teaching of wisdom by centralizing Aboriginal peoples’ experiential knowledge rather than subverting it.
Third, the teaching of love promotes kindness in research approaches. In this project, love was enacted by ensuring that the research benefitted the Aboriginal participants and community members, rather than just the university researchers. It was a given that, as the primary university researcher, I would be granted a doctoral degree through this research and would also be able to publish the work in an effort to advance my academic career. However, in keeping with an Indigenous decolonizing research agenda and praxis, it was necessary to shift toward a more loving research agenda of social justice and community change in order to ensure that local community members also benefitted from the research. The research process was thus designed to be a culturally affirming and empowering experience for the participants, emphasizing their strength and resilience as Aboriginal athletes who have relocated away from home and overcome
many challenges. As revealed in Chapter 5, in sharing their accounts through a strength-based approach, many participants realized that they had something to offer to their community, and became inspired to use their stories to encourage other Aboriginal youth to pursue their dreams. On a second level, the research was designed to generate action-oriented knowledge (i.e., applied strategies) that would open up meaningful opportunities for enhancing the context of athlete relocation. Through this knowledge-action nexus, the research has informed and catalyzed “real” change from within the local community. Such outcomes reflect the spirit of love that was engaged within the research.
Fourth, the teaching of honesty advocates that researchers make concerted efforts to build relationships of trust within the local community and with the people participating in the
research. Aligning with the aforementioned guideline of establishing authentic relationships, this teaching emphasizes the need for researchers to show Aboriginal community members that they come with open hearts and honest intentions, and are willing to really learn with and from the community (Smith, 1999). In the current initiative, the relationships between the Aboriginal community members and university research team members (including myself) were predicated on the tenet of honesty. Through regular research meetings within the Wikwemikong
community, I strove to be transparent in terms of the academic agenda I brought to the research relationship while also remaining open to the needs and interests of local community members, valuing their knowledge for shaping a more meaningful project. In these meetings, open and honest dialogues and negotiations were facilitated ongoing regarding our work, in terms of what it was aimed at doing, how it would balance community needs with academic ones, how it would best be engaged within the community, and how the knowledge could be put into action.
to the research and was comfortable with how it was moving forward towards particular goals. Fifth, the teaching of humility suggests that researchers get rid of any preconceived expectations or assumptions related to Aboriginal people and their communities, and engage in research more openly as learners. Recognizing my position as an outsider (and potential
colonizer) to the Aboriginal community, the current project was taken up in a participatory manner that elicited greater humility on my part. The Aboriginal community members were recognized as possessing critical cultural knowledge which I lacked, and thus, they were engaged as the experts at the crux of the research, helping me to understand and explore the lives of local people in more meaningful ways. Through this shift in leadership and power, I had to accept a more decentralized and reflexive research role. I was encouraged to explore my subjectivities and examine how they shaped the research processes and the knowledge that was produced around the identities and lives of Aboriginal people (Brydon-Miller et al., 2011; Genat, 2009; Simpson, 2001). Through these efforts, I became more aware of the ways in which I could contribute to knowledge production processes that were culturally meaningful and supportive, or culturally marginalizing (McGannon & Johnson, 2009). The need to remain humble and open minded was thus an ongoing effort for me.
Sixth, the teaching of truth indicates that the stories and experiences community members share with researchers flow from their hearts and are given with the intent of benefitting
everyone, including the local community. Researchers must therefore honour the stories that are shared with them as truths. In this project, the participants’ stories of relocation were honoured through their visual and narrative presentations. In-depth narrative quotes were used to present the participants’ experiences in their own words (rather than the words of the researcher), while their mandala drawings were also explored as highly meaningful visual representations. These
supplementary strategies enabled a more holistic understanding of the participants’ relocation experiences to be shared, accounting for the richness and interconnected dimensions of their lives. Their voices and meanings were presented as much as possible, in order to maintain their truths. Furthermore, the research team members and I have honoured the participants’ stories by presenting them (in mandala form) on a community blanket. The blanket, which is currently displayed at the community Youth Centre, visually depicts the participants’ truths regarding their sport relocation. The purpose of this visual display is to educate aspiring on-reserve youth and young adults about what it like to pursue sport outside of the community, and inspire them to not be afraid to pursue their aspirations. Through this application the participants’ stories are being used to enhance the context of athlete relocation, and are thus being honoured as catalysts for community change.
Seventh, the teaching of bravery promotes courage to do what is right. In the current project, this teaching was exhibited by each of the 21 participants, as they were willing to share their stories (i.e., their truths) and let me, as well as the readers of this dissertation, into their lives. It undoubtedly took much courage from the participants to open themselves up in this research, but they did it with the hope that their stories would be used to create positive
community change. Bearing in mind these individuals’ bravery, I have endeavored to show my own courage by conducting this research in the spirit of core Indigenous teachings and
decolonizing processes while resisting traditional Westernized research approaches (with the caveat that this dissertation document is ultimately a Westernized product, written to meet external academic criteria). The Indigenous research process has been a major (and at times difficult) learning experience for me, wherein I have been challenged to move outside of my own culture-bound ways of thinking and doing, and open up to alternative perspectives. As I have
continued to learn about and engage in Indigenous research processes, I have also been
confronted by people in the university and the larger academic community who subtly and not- so-subtly question the legitimacy of this research, and criticize it as being “unscientific” or simply “not research” (as has been experienced by other Indigenous researchers such as Giles, 2013). These criticisms have been hard for me to take in given that I have spent the last four years of my life devoted to this project, trying to develop it as a meaningful piece of community based scholarship. However, I also realize that these criticisms stem from a Eurocentric
understanding of research, which has been so deeply engrained in many individuals that they find it difficult to imagine alternative perspectives and approaches. I have and will continue to stand by and defend this research, knowing that it was developed and carried out with Aboriginal community members in a culturally meaningful manner and with a critical agenda of espousing change. I hope that I have exhibited the teaching of bravery by carrying my research out in a way that is “right” for the local Aboriginal community, proving myself to be an “allied other” and a part of a process of change (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008).
Collectively, the seven grandfather teachings contributed to a more holistic and culturally resonant research process that was more deeply connected to the lives of community members and that opened up more critical knowledge around the context of athlete relocation. The
teachings helped bring attention to my role in the production of knowledge and meaning around people’s lives, and made me more aware of the actions and attitudes were required to move the research forward as an ethical, locally meaningful piece of Aboriginal scholarship.