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© Emerald Group Publishing

Chapter 1: Culturally Responsive Methodologies From the Margins By Mere Berryman, Faculty Of Education, The University Of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand Suzanne SooHoo, College Of Educational Studies, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA Ann Nevin, Professor Emerita, Arizona State Universtiy, AZ, USA

Introduction

Traditional Western research frameworks have given little regard to participants’

rights to initiate, contribute, critique or evaluate research. Traditionally, the ‘right-

to-be-studied (or not)’ and decisions about how the study would be carried out,

have not been maintained by the researched community, rather they have been

sustained by groups of outsiders who have retained the power to research and to

define. So much so, that many researched groups who have been re-storied and

‘Othered’ through these processes would undoubtedly agree with Indigenous Māori,

researcher Linda Smith (1999) who argues that the word research is “one of the

dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary. When mentioned in many

indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it conjures up bad memories . . .” (p.1).

In this book, an international team of scholars offers their theorizing and practices

within an alternative framework that we have termed culturally responsive

methodologies. These methodologies challenge all forms of traditional research

paradigms that devalue or dehumanize research participants. They encourage

instead a research stance where establishing respectful relationships with

participants is central to both human dignity and the research. This position

requires researchers to develop relationships that will enable them to intimately

come to know the ‘Other’ with whom they seek to study. This may only begin to

happen when such a relationship is reciprocated. A stance such as this challenges

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traditional research notions of objectivity and neutrality, opening up a space for

research that calls for engagement through the establishment of relational

discourses. While research of this kind may pose many questions, in this book we

grapple with four main questions to which we pose some practical research

responses. The questions that we seek to understand are:

1. What is culturally responsive methodology?

2. How and why does culturally responsive methodology differ from other forms of

inquiry?

3. What benefits does culturally responsive methodology offer to participants and

researchers?

4. How do we unlearn traditional forms of research so that we can open up spaces of

more authentic inquiry?

In this inquiry we have been informed by the work and scholarship of Indigenous,

disabled, Latino, gay and other ‘minoritized’ groups as we attempt to realize

culturally responsive research methodology as an alternative, naturalistic paradigm

from which to achieve socially responsible research outcomes for these and other

minoritized groups. In our use of the term minoritized, we apply the same

understandings as Shields, Bishop and Mazawi (2005) who use the term

‘minoritized’ in educational settings. In their writing, Shields et al. emphasize that

whether in the numerical minority or majority, many of these groups are subjected

to oppression and suppression by elements of the dominant discourse, in that they

continue to be excluded from decision-making and other positions of power. In our

application of these same understandings we link social issues through research

methods to the groups, contexts and settings with whom and in which we and other

researchers may seek to work. The work of each of the authors represents at least

one of these minoritized groups. We now consider the major theories within which

we have positioned and framed culturally responsive methodologies.

Positioning our Work

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To address the questions we have posed, we draw mainly upon explanations of

critical theory and kaupapa Māori theory, and it is within these two key theoretical

frameworks that we position our work. Emerging from these two theoretical

frameworks, we then discuss the principles and practices of relationships and

narratives. Although similar notions of freedom from domination, self

determination and relationships are also to be found in postcolonial theory and

feminist theory, we have chosen critical and kaupapa Māori theoretical frameworks

because they both affirm and inform our research stance, our theorizing, and our

practices. In this chapter, we go on to discuss some of the theoretical and practical

implications involved in culturally responsive research methodologies before

concluding with a description of how this book is organized.

Relationships between Knowledge and Research

In terms of the relationship between epistemology and culturally responsive

research methodology; we contend that culturally responsive researchers approach

their work as “situated practice” (Arzubiega Artiles, King, & Harris-Murri, 2008, p.

309). For example, our authors consciously and conscientiously focused on

researching how their participants made meaning. Researching how others make

meaning requires that, in their search for epistemological clarity, researchers must

ask some fundamental questions such as: What is knowledge? How is knowledge

produced? Who has the power to produce knowledge? And for whose benefit is the

knowledge created?

Questions such as these can be traced back to Socrates but have been asked more

recently by John Dewey, Paulo Freire and Indigenous leaders such as Linda Smith

(1999, 2012) and Russell Bishop (2005), as well as by other contemporary critical

and curriculum theorists. Understanding how a particular group of people view the

world is linked to how members of a group define knowledge; how they

differentiate between various forms of knowledge; which forms of knowledge have

more value for the community or society; and who benefits or are disadvantaged by

different forms of knowledge. When posing and addressing the question, “Who or

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what controls knowledge?” the researcher looks at the politics of access, as well as

social media or governmental agencies that influence the dispersion of the

knowledge. Not only is epistemological clarity important in understanding how

Others view the world and social phenomenon, but it is also essential that

researchers be clear about their own epistemology and ability to see beyond their

own limited understanding of knowledge production.

Given that research methods aim to provide systematic procedures for doing

research (Green, Camilli, & Elmore 2006), certain considerations must be taken into

account within a framework of culturally responsive methodology where

knowledge is co-created by the researcher and participants. Determining the basic

epistemological assumptions of knowledge production is essential in this type of

research. One must consider not only the transmission of knowledge but also how

knowledge is produced. Conventional methodology, both quantitative and

qualitative, lack commitment to inclusiveness, cultural diversity, and

epistemological pluralism (Biermann 2011, p. 397) and therefore research

procedures do not typically focus on the diverse ways people come to know about

their worlds. Walker (2003) calls this omission a structural violence in research

designs and challenges researchers to reject a colonial epistemological paradigm

and instead meaningfully integrate multiple ways of knowing within research

protocols. The connection between knowledge and power is clear (Shor, 2009), with

Dei (2011) arguing that “no one body of knowledge can have superiority over

another” (p. 3). Furthermore Biermann (2011) asserts “[h]aving a different

understanding of the process of knowledge generation, legitimization, and

dissemination …. is a process of intellectual decolonization that challenges discipline

boundaries, establishes epistemological traditions, and normative assumptions” (p.

393). If we omit this area of the research, we need to come to terms with our own

complicity in maintaining colonial structures. However, if we afford it systematic

attention, we will have challenged normative processes of academic knowledge

production, legitimization, and dissemination (Biermann, 2011).

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Integrating multiple ways of knowing within research protocols can be achieved by

the researcher becoming competent in the culture of the researched group;

however, cultural competency alone can also reinforce and maintain the dominance

of the researcher. In this book we pose culturally responsive as a more participatory

stance from which to research. To explain our use of this term we use a definition of

culture that encapsulates both responsive (how we relate and interact) and

appropriate (cultural iconography) elements.

Culture is what holds a community together, giving a common framework of

meaning. It includes how people communicate with each other, how we make

decisions, how we structure our families and who we think is important. It

expresses our values towards land and time and our attitudes towards work and

play, good and evil, reward and punishment.

Culture is preserved in language, symbols and customs and celebrated in art,

music, drama, literature, religion and social gatherings. It constitutes the

collective memory of the people and the collective heritage which will be handed

down to future generations.

(Quest Rapuara, 1992, p.7)

Thus, it is our contention that being culturally responsive requires the researcher to

develop contexts within which the researched community can define, in their own

ways, the terms for engaging, relating and interacting in the co-creation of new

knowledge. While these terms of engagement may also be culturally appropriate for

the researched community, they must not be defined nor imposed by the researcher.

Critical theory is one framework that can provide the researcher with the space to

bring this work to fruition. Further ahead we will show where kaupapa Māori

theory is another.

Critical Theory “Critical qualitative research embodies the emancipatory, empowering values of

critical pedagogy….. (It) bring researchers and their research participants into a

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shared, critical space, a space where the work of resistance, critique, and

empowerment can occur.”

(Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008, p.5)

Culturally responsive research methodology is the conjoined work of both the

researcher and the participant(s) of carving out a liberatory research pathway

towards mutual respect and freedom from domination. The cloth from which this

conceptual framework is born is the resistance to research conventions where the

researcher unilaterally dominates and exerts power over the participants. This

framework also takes its lessons from the valuable literature of decolonizing

methodologies (Dei, 2005; Smith, 1999). It contests the “blind privilege and

unquestioned authority that gave early anthropologists the opportunity to name

their world view of other people as truth “(Pirsig, 1991). From a place of privilege,

the researcher may describe and interpret social phenomenon from her own lens

with little regard for the source of that knowledge. It is also the resistance to the

“Western academy that privileges Western knowledge systems and their

epistemologies” (Mutua & Swadener, 2004, p.10). Culturally responsive

methodologies performatively disrupt and deconstruct cultural practices in the

name of a “more just, democratic and egalitarian society” (Kincheloe & McLaren,

2000, p. 285).

Connections to Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Culturally responsive research is a conceptual companion to culturally responsive

pedagogy which values students’ backgrounds and cultural experiences to inform

pedagogy (Au 1993; Berryman, SooHoo & Woller, 2010; Gay, 2010; Irvine, 2003;

Ladson Billings, 1995; Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992; Nieto, 2000). In

culturally responsive methodologies, not only are the participants’ cultural lives

considered essential in the research design but also the lives of the researchers, as

both sides bring their collective resources and well being together to construct a

process of relevant and significant meaning making. While critical ethnography

made inroads into the transparency of the researcher’s biases and subjectivities,

there appeared to be little emphasis on the researcher’s relationship with

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participants. Seeking parity with research participants resonates with critical

pedagogy as participants are viewed as experts of their own local knowledge

(Freire, 1972; Kincheloe & Steinberg, 2008).

Participants and researchers are encouraged to bring their identities and ideologies

to the research table so that these authentic selves inform the co-creation of new

knowledge in a third space (Bhabha, 1994; Soja, 1996), the empty space between

the self and the other (Shor, 2009). Co-construction takes place through dialogue

which Freire (1998) suggests is the place we can look to find our truth. We bring to

that space our humility (Freire, 1998; SooHoo, 2006) and our “unfinishedness of the

human condition.” “It is in this consciousness that the very possibility of learning, of

being educated, resides” (Freire, 1998, p. 66). In his work on cultural synthesis,

Freire considers dialogical action as having the capacity to “confront culture and

structures that are oppressive and invasive, where people impose their will over the

people” (p. 180). From a framework of relationships, co-creation is mutual

engagement and “there are no spectators” (p.180). Dialogical action challenges both

quantitative and qualitative research traditions that manipulate, culturally invade,

or involve the conquest of people. Applying Freire’s work to the relationship

between the researcher and the researched, culturally responsive methodology

reframes the researcher’s stance as expert to one of learner where the people “who

come from ‘another world’ to the world of people who do so not as invaders. They

do not come to teach or to transmit or to give anything, but rather to learn, with the

people, about the people’s world” (Freire, 1998, p. 180). Conversely, the

people/participants are not acted on by researchers; instead they are leaders

“reborn in new knowledge and new action” (Freire, 1998, p. 181) Humility and self-

awareness of our mutual incompleteness sustains our relationship and our work

with each other. It is in this space that a language of possibilities is crafted and the

“work of resistance, critique, and empowerment can occur” (Denzin, Lincoln, &

Smith, 2008, p.5). Resistance to power and domination allows us to unlearn

dehumanizing pedagogies in favor of more inclusive alternatives (Giroux, 2001).

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Given a commitment to inclusion in Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks (1994)

explores the possibilities of a more inclusive teaching pedagogy she names as

liberatory pedagogy in higher education classrooms. In these environments, hooks

suggests that everyone in the classroom has power and the power can be

collectively directed in different ways in order to expand the possibilities of how

students and teachers come to know and work in their worlds. Liberatory discourse

is when teachers invite/listen/learn from their students and students take

responsibility to be “equally committed to creating a learning context” (hooks, 1994

p. 153). Similar principles led Bishop and Berryman (2006) to talk with Māori

students, family members, teachers and principals in a group of New Zealand

secondary schools. From these experiences Bishop and Berryman developed a

pedagogical response they refer to as a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations.

According to Bishop and colleagues a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations is

accomplished when teachers create contexts where learners can be more self

determining; where pedagogy is interactive and dialogic; where the cultural

experiences of all students have validity; where knowledge is actively co-

constructed and where participants are connected through the establishment of a

common vision of what constitutes educational excellence (Bishop, Berryman,

Cavanagh, & Teddy, 2007). Upon these principles a successful school-wide reform

program has subsequently been developed (Bishop et al., 2012).

Although these previous authors may not have intended to generalize from

classroom to research relationships, the primacy of the humanization of research

methodologies is the core of culturally responsive methodology. The socially

responsible researcher must extend rights and respect to research participants in

order to not replicate hierarchical colonization. Our lives in higher education,

whether in the classroom or in the field must be guided by our respect for human

dignity because, borrowing from hooks’ inspiration, “being a teacher is being with

people” (hooks, p. 165). Similarly, we believe that being a researcher means being

with people; otherwise we perform what Friere (1972) calls colonial privilege.

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According to Freire (1972), “The first challenge, (in) deconstructing colonial

privilege, must involve an active process of conscientization” (p. 394). Césaire

(2000) encourages us to look at the current colonial informed structures of research

from a deficit prism. From this stance, Biermann (2011) suggest that we ask

ourselves the following questions, “What must I unlearn from my position of

privilege within the current structures in order to invent new ways of approaching

research that are more ethical and socially just?” “How might I reexamine the

Eurocentric conceptions of who is a ‘qualified expert’?” (p. 396). In Pedagogy of

Freedom, Freire (1998) pronounced, “I feel pity and sometimes fear for the

researcher who exhibits undue confidence in his/her certainty- an author of truth.

And who is unable to recognize the historicity of his/her own knowledge” (p. 62).

He continued, “I cannot insofar as I consider myself to be progressive, impose in an

arrogant fashion, the ‘truth’ of my way of thinking” (p. 76). The privilege and

accompanying arrogance of asserting one’s research expertise over others, defies

what Dei (2008) describes as the “humility of knowing” and the “uncertainty of

knowledge.” He maintains the “search for discursive synthesis are at the heart of

multicentric knowing” (p.12).

Reciprocity, dialogue and relationship building are the core of co-creation. In the

work of democratic civic engagement by Saltmarsh and Hartley (2011), co-creation

signals an epistemological shift from researcher-driven practices, which utilizes

expert knowledge, to “a different kind of contextualized rationality which breaks

down the distinctions between knowledge producers and knowledge consumers”

(p. 20). The involvement of individuals is “not just as consumers of knowledge and

services but also as participants in the larger public culture of democracy (p. 21).

Sociologists who value democratic engagement seek public good as work with the

public, and not merely for the public (p. 20). Within this orientation lies democratic

principles embedded in the structures of university research where “the terms of

engagement, the ways of studying the issues and the ownership of the actions and

the intellectual products are … negotiated with the legitimate local stakeholders”

(Greenwood 2008, p. 333). This also means the ultimate determination of the value

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and worth of the research are also co-determined. Both the researcher and

participants account to the public, of the public good of their mutual research

efforts.

Aligned with the above, Michael Burawoy, former president of the American

Sociology Association promoted the concept of public sociology. Echoing the life

work of Howard Zinn (1922-2010), Burawoy (2005) defined a public sociologist as

one who makes a concerted effort to engage in dialogue with the public on their

ideas. The public are not mere participants but are viewed as those “who can

participate in their own creation as well as their transformation” (Burawoy, 2005, p.

8). Therefore the process of public sociology involves “a dialogic relation between

sociologist and public in which the agenda of each is brought to the table.” Burawoy

acknowledges, while this commitment to dialogue is hard to sustain, it is “the goal of

public sociology to develop such a conversation” (p. 8). Public sociology and critical

research have similar regard for research participants.

Critical social research, according to Gallagher (2009), “has not produced a tight

methodological school of thought (but rather) methods or techniques of data

gathering grow from the theory . . .” (p. 2). Therefore grounded practice leads to

theory building. While Griffiths (1998) questions, “[w]hat research techniques and

methodologies are most appropriate to do research for social justice?” (p. 3), we

suggest that the right of democratic participation in research advances the ultimate

goal of socially just research. In this book, as an alternative framework to all forms

of conventional hierarchical research, we present a framework of cultural

responsiveness coupled with social responsibility that is both humanizing and

socially just.

We now turn to kaupapa Māori theory as the second theoretical framework within

which we have positioned our work. While some kaupapa Maori researchers

acknowledge connections between critical theory and kaupapa Māori theory

(Bishop, 2005; G, Smith, 1997; L, Smith, 1999), others maintain a more separate

view, rightfully suggesting that critical theory does not depend on kaupapa Māori

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theory for its existence, nor does kaupapa Māori depend upon critical theory

(Pihama, 2001). It is Pihama’s contention that a kaupapa Māori theoretical

framework must be connected to the “historical and cultural realities, in all their

complexities” (2001, p. 88), that are Māori. We would contend that a critical theory

framework also must be connected to the complex, historical, and cultural realities

of participants. Given that the editors and authors come mainly from a critical

theory or kaupapa Māori background we have focused upon “the similarities within

these differences” (Kanpol, 1992) while also maintaining the mana (integrity) of

each as we acknowledge both theoretical frameworks that we have drawn upon.

Kaupapa Māori Theory: an Indigenous framework1 The term kaupapa implies a framing or structuring around how ideas are perceived

and practices are applied (Mead, 1997), while the term Māori refers to the

Indigenous tribal groups from New Zealand. Kaupapa Māori therefore locates this

structuring or agenda clearly within Māori aspirations, preferences and practices.

Kaupapa Māori emerged from Māori dissatisfaction with the effects of the rapid

urbanisation of Māori in the post-World War II period and culminated in what has

been viewed as an intensifying of political consciousness and a shift in the mindset

of large numbers of Māori people in the 1970s and 1980s (Berryman, 2008, Bishop,

2005; Smith, 1999; Walker, 1989), away from that of the dominant colonial

discourse. This renewed consciousness featured what Bishop (1996) notes as “the

revitalization of Māori cultural aspirations, preferences and practices as a

philosophical and productive educational stance and resistance to the hegemony of

the dominant discourse” (p.11) that was responsible for producing a range of

societal changes that are still impacting Māori life styles more than four decades

later. One of the initial and most enduring kaupapa Māori changes is evident in

education. This is seen in a community-led movement known as Kōhanga Reo

(language nests) that began in resistance to mainstream educational systems that

had perpetuated the ongoing loss of Māori language. Kōhanga Reo has promoted the

revitalization of the Māori language through Māori language immersion pre-school

1 All authors referred to in this section on Kaupapa Māori theory are Indigenous Māori scholars.

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settings across the nation. Today the Kōhanga Reo movement has prompted total

immersion settings at all levels of education from early childhood to tertiary.

Furthermore, directly or indirectly it has prompted a range of other initiatives that

in the 1970s might have seemed inconceivable. To name just a few these include:

Māori language being recognized as an official New Zealand language; the national

anthem being sung in Māori and then in English; a Māori language television

channel; and importantly, Māori language now being taught in mainstream schools.

Therefore, as in this previous example, kaupapa Māori theory involves challenging

previous Western ideas of what constituted valid knowledge. Rather than abuse and

degrade Māori and Māori ways of knowing, it allows Māori communities to take

ownership and support the revitalization and protection of all things Māori. Given

this stance, kaupapa Māori also opens up avenues for critiquing western worldviews

and approaches. This involves looking at the effects of colonization, power and

social inequalities and challenging western ideas about what constitutes knowledge.

However, in order for this to occur, it is vital for the centrality of power to be

analyzed and imbalances within these relationships to be addressed (Bishop 1996,

2005). Bishop (1996) suggests kaupapa Māori provides “the deconstruction of those

hegemonies which have disempowered Māori from controlling and defining their

own knowledge within the context of unequal power relations in New Zealand”

(p.13). Subsequently, Bishop (1996, 2005) developed a model for empowering

research and for evaluating research that seeks to honor the Treaty of Waitangii as

well as respond to Māori demands for self-determination by identifying the locus of

power and addressing issues of initiation, benefits, representation, legitimation and

accountability.

Bishop’s model is based on five critical areas of questioning that address issues of

power and control. The first elements are concerned with how the research is

initiated and who benefits from the research. Traditional Māori approaches to

research have within the very culturally determined process a means of establishing

benefits for each member of the research group and for the group as a whole.

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Locating research within Māori cultural perspectives is essential for ensuring

positive outcomes and benefits to Māori. The third element is representation, whose

ideas and realities are represented. In Bishop’s model, the research must be located

within Māori discourses, that is, Māori ideology, metaphors, concepts and social

reality must be represented throughout the study. For too long Māori knowledge

has been constructed from the Western researcher’s expert perspective for ease of

understanding and use by colonizers. The fourth element is legitimation. Whose

needs, interests and concerns does the research represent? Legitimately, a Māori

voice must be used if appropriate meanings and sense are to be made from Māori

life experiences and social reality. Finally, Bishop encourages researchers to

examine the question of accountability. To whom are the researchers accountable?

Given that traditional Western research paradigms have been able to dominate and

marginalize Māori knowledge and ways of knowing by maintaining power and

control over these critical issues in the past, Bishop asserts that Māori metaphors

and positioning will determine the authenticity of the Māori cultural content. In this

manner, Bishop’s model maintains that Māori must be the ones to identify the

authenticity of the Māori language and cultural experience themselves. Therefore,

for Māori, going back into a worldview that is Māori is essential to this process,

albeit whilst also acknowledging the impact of colonization. By maintaining power

and control over these critical issues in the past, traditional Western research

paradigms have been able to dominate and marginalize Māori knowledge with the

result that Māori people have begun to refuse to participate in research where they

are without a voice (Smith 1999).

Smith (2003) contends that the aforementioned Māori language revitalization

movement produced visible mindset shifts “away from waiting for things to be done

for them, to doing things for themselves; a shift away from an emphasis on reactive

politics to an emphasis on being more proactive; a shift from negative motivation to

positive motivation” (p.2). Smith observes that these mindset shifts involved

numbers of Māori moving from merely talking about de-colonization, which places

the colonizer at the center of attention, to talking about conscientization (Freire,

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1972) or consciousness-raising which put Māori at the center of attention and in a

position where changes could be made. Smith (2003) explains this situation as one

where Māori are taking more responsibility for their own condition and dealing

with what he terms the “politics of distraction”. Instead of “always being on the

‘back-foot’, ‘responding’, ‘engaging’, ‘accounting’, ‘following’ and ‘explaining,’” (p. 2)

to the colonizer, a critical response is the rejection of hegemonic thinking and

practices (Gramsci, 1971) and therein becoming critically conscious about one’s

own needs, aspirations and preferences.

Friere (1972) notes that in order to achieve critical consciousness, it is necessary to

own one’s situation; that people cannot construct theories of liberating action until

they are no longer internalizing the dominant discourse. Smith (2003) notes also

that rather than being reactive to colonization (thus putting the focus back on the

colonizer) as in practices associated solely with de-colonization, kaupapa Māori is a

proactive transformative stance. Kaupapa Māori therefore keeps the focus on Māori

while at the same time repositioning Māori away from positions of deficit

theorizing, about their status within colonization, to positions of agency, where

Māori can take responsibility for transforming their own condition (Bishop,

Berryman, Tiakiwai & Richardson, 2003). An important part of repositioning

involves looking back into the Māori worldview for the myth messages (Walker

1978), the discourses or sets of ideas and metaphors to guide us. In searching for

these cultural aspirations (Smith, 1997), we must seek solutions that ensure cultural

identity is strengthened rather than continually rendered meaningless or invisible.

In summary Smith (1997) identifies that the essence of kaupapa Māori theorizing:

relates to being Māori;

connects to Māori philosophy and principles;

takes for granted the legitimacy and validity of Māori;

takes for granted the legitimacy and validity of the Māori language,

beliefs and practices; and

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is concerned with the struggle for Māori autonomy, both cultural and

political.

While this list specifies connections to Māori, in culturally responsive

methodologies, we consider its application to other minoritized groups.

Today kaupapa Māori theorizing is used more widely, informing policies and

practices across a range of sectors and initiatives (Bishop, 2005; Mead, 1997; L.

Smith, 1999, 2012). As such, it is a dynamic framework in which to understand the

world and to work for change. Kaupapa Māori theory suggests that reconnection

with one’s own heritage enables greater opportunity and ability to reclaim the

power to define oneself and, in so doing, define solutions that will be more effective

for Māori, now and in the future. A concept that reconnects to Māori heritage and

one that is central to kaupapa Māori principles is the process of

whakawhanaungatanga, or making connections when one encounters new people.

This involves cultural rituals of encounter during which reciprocal introductions are

made. Introductions will often include genealogical, tribal and familial connections

to one’s important people and historical landmarks. Connections are seldom made

about who one is in terms of work or title until these whakawhanaungatanga

connections have been properly established. Once made, whakawhanaungatanga

brings with it connections, responsibilities and commitments. Connectedness such

as this has much to offer non-Māori seeking to work within kaupapa Māori research

and it has much to offer other marginalized groups and researchers who seek to

work with them. In this next section we discuss relationships from wider cultural

perspectives.

Relationships Clandinin and Connelly (1994) contend that because social sciences are concerned

with the way people relate to others and to their environments, the study of these

inter-relationships as experiences is the appropriate starting point for social science

inquiry. However they point out that scientific, social and philosophical conventions

also collectively work to define what is acceptable (and not acceptable) in the study

of experience. They cite Rose (1990) who argues for social forms and the study of

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the meanings contained within texts, as the way towards social science inquiry. This

formalistic argument views social organization and structure rather than people and

experience as more appropriate starting points. Clandinin and Connelly (1994)

suggest that while Rose’s arguments (social structures and people’s experiences)

may each contain elements of truth, it has been more useful for them to find some

middle ground where they can be involved with the study of experience while

recognizing the politics of the methodology. Furthermore, they suggest, personal

experience methods, when related to both the structure of the experience to be

studied and the methodological patterns of inquiry, can enable researchers to

participate in ways that promote the possibility of transformations and growth

(Clandinin & Connelly, 1994).

Freire (1972, p.105), in his famous expression, “reading of the world and reading of

the word,” contends that reading of the world cannot be something academics do

and then impose onto the people. Rather it is the duty of the intellectual to engage in

dialectical solidarity (Freire, 2004), where people question, experiment and plan

together in order to mutually explore the knowledge of living experiences. This

implies that researchers’ responsibilities require a relational interaction that is not

usually expected within traditional Western research paradigms where the

researcher is trained to remain objective. Clandinin and Connelly (1994) also

suggest that the experiences of the researcher and the participant can and must be

intertwined so that the two are intimately linked. Likewise, Bishop (2005) calls for

methods that promote commitment to the research participants and acknowledge

connectedness. Brayboy and Deyhle (2000) also contend that when researchers

work with participants to give the fullest possible picture of what occurred through

both the researchers’ and participants’ interpretation of the same events, then a

richer picture is formed through a reciprocal, co-created response.

Within research such as this, relationships are not characterized by objectivity,

distance, detachment, and separation (Bishop, 1998; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990;

Heshusius, 1994). Within this stance, a focus on self is blurred (Bishop, 1998), so

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much so that the focus becomes what Heshusius (1994) describes as a situation

where “reality is no longer understood as truth to be interpreted but as mutually

evolving” (p.18). From an operational perspective, positivist epistemological and

methodological concerns may well be set aside so that researchers can focus instead

on addressing the concerns and issues of the participants in ways that can be

understood and controlled by the participants. Within this stance the same concerns

and issues also become those of the researchers, and the participants become part

of the common purpose and group that drives the research. In this way, both the

researcher and the participants can experience beneficial outcomes from the

research process.

Clandinin and Connelly (1994) highlight the importance of relationships between

researchers and their audiences if individual and social change is going to be

possible, stating that methods such as these cannot exist without first building

relationships between researchers and participants. Collaborative and participatory

inquiry could be seen as a reaction to positivist research approaches that have

increasingly placed the researcher outside and separate from the subject of their

research in their search for objective truth (Reason, 1994). Reason (1994) contends

that collaborative and participatory inquiry comes from a more “pluralistic and

egalitarian” worldview that “sees human beings as co-creating their reality through

participation: through their experience, their imagination and intuition, their

thinking and their action” (p.324). Kemmis and McTaggart (2000) contend that this

type of research emerged “more or less deliberately as forms of resistance to

conventional research practices that were perceived by some participants as acts of

colonization” (p.572). While other more conventional social research may claim to

value neutrality, Kemmis and McTaggart argue that it “normally serves the

ideological function of justifying the position and interests of the wealthy and

powerful” (p.568). Participative inquiry has useful application to problems raised in

settings and contexts where people have been traditionally marginalized as it allows

both groups to collaborate from the outset to determine the problems, participants

and methodologies upon which to finally determine the solutions. In situations such

18

as this, and as discussed in the next section, one way to promote findings is through

personal experience or narratives.

Narratives From an assumption that experience is both temporal (chronological and worldly)

and storied, Mutua and Swadener (2004) have come to the study of experience

through narrative and story-telling. In their view, experiences are the stories people

live. People reaffirm and modify stories in their retelling and they also create new

stories. Storytelling, they suggest is the “central genre of contemporary decolonizing

writing” (Mutua & Swadener, 2004, p. 13). They raise consciousness of colonizing

research traditions and suggest that in the storied lives of researchers, one can see

how researchers made sense of ethical dilemmas and methodological challenges.

When framed as counter-narratives, they can disrupt the “prevailing structures and

relationships of power and inequity” (Mutua & Swadener, 2004, p.16). According to

SooHoo (2006), “[t]he examination of everyday marginality, laced with suffering and

rage, elicited a counter hegemonic awareness and mobilized the necessity for

emancipation and radical change” (p. 19).

Stories advocate for the importance of human connections and relationships when

using personal experience methods, both between the researcher and participants,

but also amongst the researcher, participants and intended audience. Clandinin and

Connelly (1994) speak about the tensions of working within a method of inquiry

designed to capture the voice of the participants’ experiences while attempting to

express one’s own voice in a research text that will speak to a range of audiences.

The research process is a process of collaborating and collaboration, or where the

researcher and participants are an inextricable whole and where there is minimal

distance between the researcher and the participants. SooHoo (2006) submits,

“[s]torytelling forms community and group solidarity. It is the social glue that

connects the vast web of humanity” (p.18). It is both a science and art form.

Moreover, science can learn much from an art form like storytelling as a way to help

one become more “qualitatively intelligent” (Eisner, 2004, p. 9).

19

In the past, the traditional positivist researcher has taken the position of the

narrator or the person who decides what the narrative will consist of and how the

research narrative will be told (Bishop, 1996, 2005). Correspondingly, the person

who benefits the most from the research experience is typically the researcher

(Kumashiro, 2010). Practices such as these have resulted in many Indigenous

peoples (Brayboy & Deyhle, 2000; Rains, Archibald & Deyhle, 2000), including

Māori, expressing concerns over issues related to power and control within

research (Bishop, 2005; G. Smith, 1990; L. Smith, 1999). Clandinin and Connelly

(1990) emphasize the dangers of merely listening, recording and presenting

participants’ stories of experience because of the potential impact of the

researchers’ own tacit experiences and theorizing that in turn determines what will

be presented to the wider community, who it will be presented to and how this will

be done.

The Confluence To reiterate, researchers in this book are seeking ways to begin their research from

the point of needing to be included as co-enquirers with the research participants

having agency over any invitation to the researcher that will allow the researcher’s

participation or not. Because entry is not automatic, researchers must frame their

research with a more respectful, less powerful, and more deferential stance. In

order to do this we have taken our understandings from the theoretical frameworks

of critical theory and kaupapa Māori theory.

Critical theory asks us to address the power differentials within the research context

and unlearn our hegemonized notions of conducting research on people rather than

with people. Unlearning involves visualizing the derailing or peeling back the tracks

of oppressor/colonizer, erasing the vestiges of uninvited stranger, in order to

reclaim space and resources, and re-territorializing the intellectual and/or physical

landscapes that were taken or oppressed. This process means questioning rather

than accepting the concept of the few having power and privilege over the masses. It

also means believing that through individual empowerment in and against

communities, we can confront social injustices (Griffiths, 1998). If an idea and

20

resulting social condition has been socially constructed, it can be socially

deconstructed, that is, concepts that have dehumanized such as racism, can be

analyzed and replaced with anti-oppressive theories of hope. One can identify new

liberatory free space, a symbolic space without mental shackles that prevent us

from humanizing our previous existence. One can envision possibility and reverse

hegemony. With this newfound clarity of social/spiritual self determination, we can

forge new pathways, with others by engaging in dialogue and praxis toward social

good, equity and the reduction of hegemonic control by the privileged.

Kaupapa Māori theory emerged as a simultaneous grass roots movement of

resistance to the dominant colonial stance and a movement of revitalization of

Māori cultural processes and practices. This decolonizing stance requires that when

we venture into new spaces, rather than imposing ourselves upon the hosts we must

call upon traditional rituals of encounter; act as visitors by respecting and adhering

to the cultural protocols and language of the hosts. In this way one is more likely to

broker, most appropriately, a new and acceptable role in that space. In cultural

contexts such as this, who you are in terms of your birthright is more important

than what you are in terms of your profession or your expertise (Berryman, 2008).

Your own identity and the relationships that you form and how you form and

maintain those connections into the future are therefore paramount. Forging new

relationships in a cultural context may require one to undergo formal rituals of

encounter. Culturally responsive researchers must respect these relationships and

the cultural preservation of Māori autonomy or any other cultural group with whom

you seek to engage.

We note that merely belonging to the cultural group does not mean that one has not

already been educated in and operating within the dominant hegemonic colonial

discourses. The unlearning of dominant research practices and relearning

methodology through and with research participants inform the mutual identity

formations between the researcher and the researched which is a phenomenon also

found in Tillman’s work (2002). These are the new pieces that responsive and

21

responsible methodologies can contribute to the literature. It is only upon the

foundations of the work discussed previously that our work is able to proceed.

While we understand the key difference between kaupapa Māori theory and critical

theory lies in the epistemologies from which each emerged and subsequently the

primacy and degree of emphasis of relationships and power, there are many

similarities. Both theoretical traditions value human dignity and strive for voice,

both honor the necessity of relationships and dialogue, both desire multicultural

revitalization, both cultivate the social and political consciousness necessary for

reform, both resist hierarchical power structures , both strive for epistemological

pluralism and both vision power over one’s own destiny, especially from those on

the margins. Relational and narrative principles provide the means to engage within

these two theoretical frameworks. And finally, both theories are based on

interlocking experiences and understandings of oppression and loss. However great

the similarities in ideologies and principles, they defy essentialism and transcend

separate categories through contextual intersectionalities.

Recently, researchers in disciplines other than education have also ventured into

research that we would consider being culturally responsive research. Feminism

and post-colonialism also bring forth other conceptual possibilities for researchers

to consider. We also credit anthropological theory that recognizes sensitivity to

participants. Huizar (1979) claimed, "[a]t present social scientists are amply trained

in tabulating, drafting questionnaires, observation and interviewing, but there is

hardly any systematic training to become sensitive to the needs and values of their

fellow human beings, individually or in groups” (p. 34). He maintained that to

overcome the alienating, dehumanizing effects of current social research

methodology, which is basically manipulative and not emancipatory; researchers

should consider more tenets of liberation anthropology that affords more agency

and influence on the research or, revert back to the service of domination (Hymes,

1972).

22

Culturally responsive family therapy models and research were promoted by

Seponski, Bermudez, and Lewis (2012). They argued that most family therapy

models are inadequate for use with families from non-Western cultures, especially

those who are perceived as “other” by the dominant group. Seponski et al.,

described a case study of a Cambodian sample using solution-focused and narrative

therapy. In medical research, Redwood, Gale, and Greenfield (2012) used a

culturally responsive art-based activity to elicit the voices of South-east Asian

women. In nursing research, Bushy (2008) conducted a culturally competent rural

nursing study that highlights the “methodological issues that are commonly

encountered with rural populations” (p. 221). Other related disciplines where

researchers are exploring culturally responsive approaches include social work

(e.g., Wiates, etal., 2004), occupational therapy (Muñoz, 2007), and psychology

(Gallardo, 2009).

Culturally Responsive Methodology – an Emerging Framework

The dimensions of culturally responsive methodology include cultural and

epistemological pluralism, deconstruction of Western colonial traditions of

research, and primacy of relationships within a culturally responsive dialogic

encounter. After reading and discussing qualitative research from an array of

methodological literature, doctoral students and faculty imagined several polarities

that would help them find their moral and culturally responsive compass as future

researchers. The seminar participants co-created the list of polarities shown Table 1

to clarify how they conceptualized culturally responsive methodology as well as

their roles as future researchers.

We emphasize that the polarities listed here only meant to illuminate the

dimensions of a culturally responsive methodology as we came to discover it and

are not intended to set up a false dichotomy. We expect that researchers will find

other polarities that their work illustrates. We are using the term “resist” as Freire

(1972) describes the goal of education is to liberate the consciousness from the

23

oppressor’s agenda. Taking action then ('conscientizao') means "learning to

perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the

oppressive elements of reality" (Freire, 1972, p.74). Culturally responsive

methodology is an intensely introspective process that requires researchers to

challenge what they have previously learned and to invent or reconstitute new

liberating and humanizing alternatives.

Table 1.1. The Polarities of Culturally Responsive Methodology

Resists Promotes Positivism Multilogicality

Essentialism and generalizations

Colonization

Holistic contextualization

Cultural rituals of the researched community

Exploitative research

Covert Agendas

Appropriation

Challenges power structures

Transparency

Overt ideological frameworks

Research “on” others Research “with” others and In service to

others.

Superiority, self interest Humility, humanity, empathy

Static passive forms of data

collection

Long term continuous knowledge sharing

Fragmented, decontextualized data Dynamic, organic, transformational,

ecological research context

Exclusive linear text representation Artistic, aesthetic, dialogic representations

The polarities captured in the table and described below reflect “the researcher’s

continuous effort to be sensitive, respectful, inclusive, and humble” (Eletreby,

personal communication, August 14, 2012). These markers represent hope and

commitment for more anti-oppressive methodologies. As future and veteran

researchers who aspire to be culturally responsive, we resist positivism and

24

promote multi-logicality. Multiple logic and truths can simultaneously co-exist

without a reconciliation that obliterates one over another. Culturally responsive

methodology would recognize different epistemologies as well as intellectual

ecologies. When researchers and participants open up the discourse to people from

multiple cultural heritages, all of us can benefit from new ways of thinking.

Culturally responsive researchers would resist essentialism and generalizations to

holistic contextualization. They take into account that many ideas and phenomena

cannot be reduced to simple schemas of understanding, rather they must be

understood instead through a wider lens of contextualization. Having affirmed this

principle, we apologize for the table that attempts to essentialize key ideas for the

purpose of theoretical clarity. We recognize the ‘practice of research’ cannot be

adequately captured within text alone but should be negotiated and dynamically

applied if appropriate.

Culturally responsive researchers would resist colonization and promotesthe rituals

of cultural practice of the participants. It is resistance to academe's ethnocentrism

we are addressing when we encourage our contributing authors to think of methods

that can more authentically encourage the diverse communities with whom they

work to bring their cultural experiences to the research. Rather than being an

exploitative research method, culturally responsive researchers would challenge

power structures that benefit the few at the expense of Others. It challenges

decisions and outcomes that were not vetted collectively which serve other

interests than determined by the research community. Researchers and

participants co-create the research questions, design, data collection and analysis,

and collaborate on the interpretation and dissemination of findings. Challenging

power structures often means that new protocols will be required to conduct this

kind of research within existing institutional structures.

Thus, transparency replaces covert agendas. This means researchers (and

participants) are encouraged to clearly communicate their known intentions,

thereby lessening the possibility of manipulation and misunderstanding.

25

Furthermore, culturally responsive researchers resist appropriation of another

culture’s knowledge or ways of knowing and promotes the uncovering of ideological

frameworks to bring forth authenticity of mutual positionalities. In place of

conducting research “on” another human being, culturally responsive researchers

work with others in service to the community of others. Culturally responsive

methodology attempts to equalize the power between researchers and participants

as they work collaboratively throughout the research process. It is the embodiment

of civic engagement. The culturally responsive researcher does not impose her

research agenda on the community. She enters into the community with an attitude

of learning from the community how to be of service, being on site frequently and

regularly to establish trust, and so on.

Culturally responsive researchers resist superiority and self-interest to promote

humility, humanity, and empathy not for individual gain and reputation but to serve

the social good as determined by the community. This stance requires researchers

to bring humility, humanity, and empathy toward Others to the table in place of a

self-centered agenda. Researchers who rely on those paradigms that emerged from

Western thinking often must learn to recognize the ways in which their

presumptions of superiority dominate their participation as researchers (see

chapters by Nevin, Glynn and Hodson in this book). Similarly, static or passive forms

of data collection are less favored than continuous, dialogic, dynamic knowledge

sharing. Data collection is seen as a long-term process built upon established

relationships and increased trustworthiness and responsibility rather than discrete

time segments of contact hours. All data are viewed within organic, transformative

perspectives, rather than in fragmented and de-contextualized ones.

And finally, we remember that written text, especially English, is the language of the

colonizer. To study Indigenous knowledge and then record it exclusively in English

often can rupture the authentic fullness of aesthetics found in orality and

performance of the culture. Therefore, culturally responsive methodology

encourages aesthetic renderings of any aspect of the lived and research experience

26

as ways to both make meaning and to disseminate research. The initiative to

diversify the languages of research is one which we encourage and aspire to.

Authors in this book include aesthetic renderings such as dialogs, poetry, collages,

visual metaphors, time lines, and so on (see chapters by Barrett, Bloomfield, Ford,

Kitonga, Macfarlane, Morris, Nodelman, and Woller).

In summary, authors in our book illuminate how culturally responsive researchers

might negotiate the polarities shown in Table 1. By raising the polarities here, we

hope readers will be alert to the nature of the polarities. Readers are encouraged to

detect how specifically the polarities are localized to each researcher’s context.

New Understandings

The chapters in this book feature how the researchers find, discover, and invent

methodology using both careful reflection and cultural intuition that comes from

their insider knowledge and from the epistemology of others (Delgado-Bernal,

1998). Further, in the spirit of grounded theory (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007; Charmaz

2006), we give ourselves permission to craft from the experience of relationships

and interactions a culturally responsive methodology. Acknowledging ‘insider

knowledge’ so deeply is glossed over by most qualitative researchers, given their

position of requiring the qualitative researcher to expose his/her biases. We have

reframed the concept of researcher bias as a gift in which researchers bring their

own “unique subjectivities” to any project. From this notion of gifting or koha, we

understand from kaupapa Māori that research gifts of this kind may be accepted or

left untouched; and that acceptance brings with it not only dual responsibility but

also real opportunities for reciprocity in terms of learning from each other.

We embrace the new trend of scholarship described by Denzin, Lincoln, and Smith

(2008) who wrote, “[t]oday, non-indigenous scholars are building these

connections, learning how to dismantle, deconstruct, and decolonize traditional

ways of doing science, learning that research is always already both moral and

political, learning how to let go” (p. 3). We embrace the purpose of research as set

27

forth by Denzin et al. (2008), “[t]he purpose of research is not the production of new

knowledge per se. Rather, the purposes are pedagogical, political, moral, and ethical,

involving the enhancement of oral agency, the production of moral discernment, a

commitment to praxis, justice, an ethic of resistance, and a performative pedagogy

that resists oppression” (p 14).

Culturally responsive methodology comes from the same cloth of decolonizing

methodologies (Bishop et al., 2009; Denzin, et al., 2008; Mutua & Swadener, 2004;

Smith 1999) and post-colonial studies and argues for thoughtful considerations

when studying the “other” and its multiple forms. Traditional qualitative

methodology includes formulaic methods declaring a certain number of interviews,

length of interviews, number of observations and field locations, etc. Typical

research studies rely on tools and procedures such as interview protocols, structure

of questions, frequency of visits and accuracy of field-notes to establish research

credibility. Doctoral students soon learn to insert these prepackaged formulas into

their chapters as evidence that their work is scholarly. The traditional methodology

section of a dissertation or research proposal is often written before the researcher

goes out to the field, sometimes before s/he has met the participants, often due to

expectations set forth by university review boards that verify the research process

protects human subjects. One could argue that the ultimate protection of human

subjects is not when they are studied by others but in the co-joined exploration of

meaning where both agendas are transparent and both individuals/groups agree on

the ethical treatment of others.

As culturally responsive researchers, we avoid naïve expectations that participants

will be freely forthcoming, welcoming, and necessarily honest with us; instead, we.

acknowledge preliminary preparatory planning is necessary. For example, before

engaging with the field, we make three important distinctions: 1) the plan is initially

co-constructed with the participants, 2) methods are consciously and collectively

shaped according to the shared ideologies (world view, beliefs, values) and

epistemologies (“ways of knowing” and “ways of sharing what one knows”) of the

28

participants and researcher, and 3) the methods and lines of inquiry are expected to

change as the researcher and participants become better acquainted and the

research begins to be more responsive to the participants’ directions throughout the

course of inquiry.

Validity and reliability or truthfulness and consistency now depend on the quality of

relationships rather than research tools and procedures. According to Harrison et al

(2001), trustworthiness is tied to obligations of reciprocity. We are answerable to

our participants and the trust they invested in us and the co- determinations of the

purpose, benefits, and dissemination of the research. Moss (2004) speaks to fidelity

that occurs among the researcher and participants, noting that it is socially just to

invite rigorous member checking of the data in order to sustain a participatory

democracy. We also embrace transformed notions of validity. Anderson, Herr, and

Nihlen (2007) define five types of validity: outcome validity: whether the study lead

to resolutions of problem; dialogic validity: degree of goodness of study is measured

by peer review; process validity: goodness of study is measured by reflective cycle

of participants; democratic validity: degree that study was conducted with

collaboration of stakeholders; catalytic validity: the degree to which the research

project moved to transformation of conditions. In their exploration of new

dimensions of quality within qualitative research, Ferguson and Ferguson (2000)

suggest that truth is when “good interpretivist research substantiates its conclusion

with a careful and persuasive description of what the researcher(s) (do) to go

beyond the obvious” – “they gathered the information as accurately as possible,

captured the phenomenon, reflected the participants’ points of view, and considered

as much as possible, the whole topic/setting/phenomenon.” (p. 183). They also

include the concepts of context and relations and use of research as cornerstones of

dimensions of quality. The authors of the chapters in this book can be seen to draw

on some of these same aspects of validity and goodness within qualitative research.

When we are transparent in the ways in which we seek to establish relations with

others, readers can often resonate with the experience. We acknowledge the

29

phenomenological and hermeneutical bias within culturally responsive

methodology in that there is an assumption inherent in theory that people can

describe and analyze their experiences and make meaning from social phenomenon.

They can and ought to speak for themselves as co-equals when collaborating with

researchers. We resist the normative deficit theorizing that we as researchers are

more privileged than those with whom we study. Rather than open a tool box, we

understand the need to build relationships of respect before seeking to co-

investigate something. We also understand that even though we might consider it to

be mutually intriguing and mutually beneficial, it may not be as important to those

with whom we seek to study. Culturally responsive methodology discourages

researchers as the single mouthpiece or interpreters of social phenomenon; of

“other” people’s experiences. The researcher does not return home with all the

“goodies.” Instead the research findings are co-owned by the participants and

dissemination decisions are reached through consensus and collaboration.

Participants are not “used” to build researchers’ publication careers. The findings

inform the community to which the participants belong.

The researcher’s original intentions and reoccurring questions transform to a focus

on how we might contribute to each other. This focus is regularly in play as the

researcher seeks new ways to know and make meaning. The researcher’s cultural

intuition (Delgado Bernal,, 1998) and critical consciousness (Freire, 1998) work

together to understand and honor the people who are willing to work with them

and this can result in reciprocal benefits. Cultural intuition can come in multiple

forms, e.g., metaphors, analogies, and spiritual awareness. The researcher’s own

identity comes into question as relationship-building reshapes each other’s world

views. Researchers who embrace culturally responsive methodology are routinely

conscious and self-critiquing of the power relationships and changes in themselves.

Culturally responsive methodology resists confinement and conformity - like water

spilling over the banks regardless of the geographic contours. Culturally responsive

methodology disrupts the traditional relationship between researcher and

30

participants and seeks to create instead an interplay of mutual interests. Culturally

responsive methodology resists the trappings of conflicting interests between the

researcher and participants by adopting a postcolonial stance of co-constructing the

research agenda and methodology. In their paper on ethics in research, Morales and

Monzó (2010) describe their work with classroom teachers who dismissed research

findings as legitimate forms of knowledge even though the findings came from their

own classrooms; “[t]eachers have neither the time, energy, or know-how to become

highly involved in the research projects in which they participate” (p. 14). Morales

and Monzó (2010) suggest instead school officials support research by convening

meetings to collectively reflect on the research process, the findings and possible

revisions of the process. Culturally responsive methodology supports this

collaboration at the very earliest stages of research. Starting with the co-

construction of the research agenda, the inquiry and what needs to be studied are

determined mutually be the researcher and the participants. Denzin et al. (1999)

clarify that “the work must represent people honestly without distortion… (the

people must have) first access to research findings (and) control over the

distribution of knowledge” (p.2). The people, then, are the ultimate evaluators of

social good. ,l

The Responsive Dialogic Space Berryman (2008) identified the importance of cultural contexts that develop

relationships by first listening respectfully and being responsive to those with

whom one seeks to engage. She posed metaphoric meeting spaces such as are seen

in many traditional Māori carvings within the double spiral or koru2 symbol. The

centre of the double spiral represents interlocking, passive and active elements

from whence symmetrical patterns of change merge and flow. When one element is

active and the other is quiescent, listening and learning is more likely to occur

rather than the continuation of talking past each other that may have occurred for

many groups historically.

2 Māori acknowledge koru as representative of the unfurling fern frond; metaphorically the koru represents

growth.

31

In Figure 1, the researcher is represented by the double spiral on the left; the

participant is represented by the double spiral on the right and between the two is

the responsive, dialogic space. Each double spiral represents the identities, prior

knowledge, cultural experiences and connections that each brings with them to an

encounter; knowing what one brings to the relationship is important.

Figure 1. The Responsive Dialogic Space about here

The space between the two represents the space within which the responsive

dialogic rituals must proceed in order for a relationship of trust and respect to be

nurtured amongst both parties. It is within this central space, through face-to-face,

dialogic and on-going interactions, that the terms of the relationship can be

brokered by both parties. Within this central space, through face-to-face, dialogic

and on-going

interactions, that the terms of the relationship can be brokered by both parties and

the rules of engagement can begin to be negotiated, understood and consolidated.

32

We have learned that listening to the other is more likely to occur when spaces to

develop respectful relationships are given priority before engaging in any joint

project. Relationships such as these can promote participation across tribal

groupings and even across different paradigms and worldviews. Within this space

potential new knowledge can emerge when both parties are able to act as co-

researchers in the co-creation of new knowledge.

While we understand we should not try to essentialise what this might look like for

different research groups, we suggest five themes (shown in Table 2) that

researchers seeking to apply culturally responsive methodologies in their research

might consider as they move into and live within contexts where they seek to be

involved as both as a co- researcher but also as a co-participant. Based on

continuous dialog between the co-editors and authors, we have identified salient

principles and questions to ask when researchers and participants seek to work in

culturally responsive ways. Principles and questions are linked to implications for

researchers and participants. In praxis, through reflection and action, culturally

responsive methodologists seek to maintain the integrity of both participants and

the research and their respective cultures and co-construct at the same time

something new. Because of differential power within relationships, an additional

responsibility for researchers requires them to facilitate conversations on

alternative power distribution. Participants are encouraged to share their

perceptions about the nature of the ongoing research relationship, the new ideas or

findings that may enrich their community, and their comfort level in continuing the

relationship. For example, when following the principle to assess shared

relationships and agreements, a key to pose is “how has the work benefitted and

how will it continue to benefit the group?” Above all participants must be assured

that they can move away from the research relationship at any time without any

penalty or detrimental outcomes to themselves or their communities.

Table 1.2. Principles and Questions to Ask Self and Implications for Responsive Research

33

Guiding Principles and Questions to ask Self when seeking to work in culturally responsive ways

Implications for researcher seeking to work in culturally responsive ways

Learn From Multiple Sources Do you come prepared with some social or

cultural knowledge of the people with whom you are seeking to engage?

1. Do the work before the work. Find out about the person/group with whom

you wish to work. Learn about/ understand the wider social agenda

within which this person/group is located.

Be prepared for a long term rather than a

momentary commitment.

Bring Your Authentic Self to the Research Section 1 of book What subjectivities, positionalities, and

ideologies do you bring to the research? How will they broker your access?

Are your own rituals of encounter respectful

and humble as a visitor in someone else’s

place?

2. Arrive as a respectful visitor. Be prepared for them to ‘feel you as well as

see you’. Listen and wait to be invited.

Learn to use all of your senses.

Bring a Relational and Dialogical Consciousness Section 2 of book In what ways do you convey open-

mindedness? What are your intentions/research questions?

What roles might people play?

3. When/if you are asked to respond. Clarify who you are, your personal self before

your professional self. Be upfront about your research intentions.

Ask for their ideas.

Listen respectfully to their ideas and understand

how your agenda may change in response.

Be patient, be flexible and be prepared to

change.

Enact Ongoing Critical Reflection Section 3 of book How have the relationships effected the

research endeavor? How has the research endeavor effected the

relationships?

How is the work evolving as a result of this

collaboration?

How have lives benefitted as a result of this

collaboration?

4. If you are asked to stay to co-construct the research. Remain patient, flexible and prepared to

change. Read your participants and expect that they will

be reading you.

Learn together and own together.

Question your own assumptions

Recognize and respect resistance.

Be open to a new relational consciousness

Assess Shared Relationships and Agreements What have you learned about their values,

beliefs, and epistemologies? How will constructed understandings contribute

to your continued work/relationship?

How has the work benefitted and how will it

continue to benefit the group you are working

with?

How do you know this?

5. When the research is finished. Understand that the relationship and the

responsibility to the group, remains.

34

Organization of the Book Culture in the contemporary world continues to be central to living and learning

(Bishop & Glynn, 1999), yet often cultural practices are misunderstood from one

community to the next. Certainly culture continues to be perplexing for researchers

and the communities with whom they seek to undertake researcher. One of the

main challenges comes with viewing culture as little more than ceremonial in

nature, able to be manipulated at will in order to fit within the dominant culture,

instead of being integral to the normal way of different communities experiencing

the world. Being able to manage the tensions between different cultural groups

without forcing a choice or compromising either can be a serious challenge.

Researchers in this book have found that they can learn more when spaces are

created for both peoples to first share and respect their own identities and

experiences as the basis for new relationships. This requires the prioritization of

ongoing time for understanding the importance of culture (our own and others) and

applying these new understandings into our practices. Here we echo Freire (1972)

who suggests that praxis is: "reflection and action upon the world in order to

transform it” (p.34).

Emphasizing the importance of personal experiences and relationships of

interdependence, the narrative and storytelling processes in the chapters show how

each of us learned by first understanding and revealing our own unique

subjectivities. Through this new relational researcher position, we were thereby

able to learn from those with whom we conducted the research as they were able to

determine their own place in these same processes. This book presents stories from

researchers who are seeking to, or who have sought to, establish long term

meaningful relationships in order to undertake culturally responsive and socially

responsible research. Research of this kind must be informed and co-created by

these communities if they are to be seen as beneficial and legitimate. Researchers in

this book show how this can be achieved.

The chapters in this book are connected through the use of a river analogy that

emphasizes the dynamic and organic nature of this work. The interrelated

35

responses to the river analogy also serve to remind us that current ways of

researching have left their mark on the landscape of life for generations, leaving

different groups feeling either supported or challenged and at times destroyed.

Personal positioning within the river has enabled authors to metaphorically and

consciously interrogate their ways of engaging as people and as researchers. As well

as linking the chapters together, these position statements are used to introduce, or

reflect on our new understandings as we all respectfully endeavor to enhance and

reshape the river so that it is working for more of the communities that we each

represent.

The chapters feature how the researchers identify their own positioning then find,

discover, and develop methodology informed by context and situation that benefits

both, from their insider knowledge and from the epistemology of others. The

authors and editors are experienced educators and/or doctoral students from many

disciplines (e.g., special education, disabilities studies, multicultural studies, critical

pedagogy, linguistics and language learning, lesbian studies, etc). Chapters include

vignettes that directly capture the interactions of the authors with their research

participants. The writers demonstrate the real-life experiences of working within a

culturally responsive and socially responsible framework. We include protocols that

show how our collaborators have worked together to create reciprocity and parity.

The chapters are organized into three sections. In Section 1, authors seek to

understand how their own culture and multiple identities influence the way they

seek to undertake research with any community. This section contains five chapters,

beginning in chapter 2 with Ted Glynn who reflects upon collaborative research

partnerships between Māori and non Māori.In chapter 3, Victoria Morris searches

for her identity as both a Gila River Native American and an emerging scholar, Then,

in chapter 4, Norma Valenzuela takes the reader on a journey to deconstruct love as

a way of knowing and understanding how its transformative power enables Latina

women to take action. Next, in chapter 5, Therese Ford discusses how she is learning

about herself as a “Māori woman” in her research to find more collaborative

36

responses to the Māori educational crisis. In chapter 6, Ann Nevin describes how, as

a traditionally trained behaviorist who is now learning to work in the area of

disability studies, she was motivated to step outside of her comfort zone to explore

new disciplines and methodologies.

In Section 2, seven authors discuss their need to make respectful research

connections and develop relationships of trust between themselves and those with

whom they seek to collaborate. First, in chapter 7, Sonja Macfarlane describes her

relationships with her research community through her Māori lineage. In chapter 8,

Debora Nodelman investigates different ways of knowing, with special emphasis on

the arts as possible pathways of self-determination for herself and for her fourth

and fifth grade bilingual (Spanish-English) students. In chapter 9, Veronica

Bloomfield examines her stance as a critical white educator and staunch advocate

for multicultural education as she seeks to showcase the members of her own

extended family regarding ancestry, heritage, culture, whiteness, and diversity. In

chapter 10, Suzanne SooHoo describes how a conceptual framework of humility

emerged from her work with Māori researchers in New Zealand. Next, in chapter 11,

Te Arani Barrett explains how, as an Indigenous Māori researcher, she has

developed a better understanding of culturally responsive research principles and

practices by listening to a group of tribal leaders. In chapter 12, Anna Wilson, the

last author in this section, discusses the privileging of one narrative over another as

she excavates the implications of culturally responsive and socially responsible

methodologies within the varied narratives of lesbian communities.

In Section 3, five researchers present what they have been able to achieve in the

collaborative co-construction of new learning and research outcomes. In chapter 13,

Mere Berryman exemplifies how, within a culturally responsive methodological

approach, participants and researchers have worked to maintain the Māori language

while also raising the education achievement of a group of fluent Māori speaking

students as they transit into English language settings. Next, in chapter14, Paul

Woller describes his journey as a non-Māori researcher, married into a tribal group,

37

who has used kaupapa Māori research methodologies while researching tribal

history . In chapter 15, Ndindi Kitonga chronicles the meaning-making experiences

and challenges of two immigrant science teachers who attempt to conduct a

decolonizing research study together. Next, in chapter 16, Dina Eletreby discusses

how, as a brown Muslim woman of Egyptian descent, she undertook research that

explores the conversion experiences of white American men to Islam. Her own

journey through this process, which was to be an exploration of whiteness, became

a study of her own brownness, an investigation of masculinity highlighted

femininity, and the focus on convertedness revealed her own bornness. In chapter

17, John Hodson reflects upon the undertaking of research in another’s territory,

engaging with the land, the people and the research. The last chapter in this section

is by Lilia Monzó who shares her experiences of living in Ensenada, Mexico for two

summers and traveling to and from throughout one year approximately one

weekend per month.

This book explores, develops and reflects on the experiences (of practice) of these

researchers during their participation in the various research projects. It also

explores their subsequent experiences when making sense of the possibilities that

might emerge in terms of new learning from each study and how this new learning

was to be understood and recorded. These personal experiences situate the

research presented in each of the chapters from within the cultural context of the

people, processes and places that were important to the participants.

We hope readers can learn from their stories how to enter the dialogical shared

space within which culturally responsive methodologies thrive. Our authors show

that culturally responsive methodology is both inclusive of many postmodern

research methodologies as well as distinctive. Feminist, decolonizing, participatory

and public sociology come from different histories and use different language but

ultimately have similar approaches in that they aim to bring those who have been

marginalized to the center of research. Within culturally responsive methodology,

the focused and broad interpretation of culture differs from feminist methodologies

38

but there is a similar emphasis on relationships, reciprocity, and community.

Culturally responsive methodology shares the same resistance to hierarchical

power structures but differs from decolonizing methodologies in that culturally

responsive methodology recognizes oppressor/oppressed relationships are not all

rooted in colonizing histories. Culturally responsive methodology shares the same

goal of involving all stakeholders in the research as in participatory research and

public sociology but may differ in intention in that it is not always about change and

transformation. One does not always enter the research relationship with the

explicit intention of changing the Other but rather to respectfully honor and support

the Other.

In the conclusion, we collaboratively reflect with the authors to emphasize what we

have uncovered, to reiterate the main points from this methodology, and to discuss

implications for other researchers. We have also sought to explain how we know

when we are undertaking culturally responsive and socially responsible research

and who must be the ones to authenticate this way of working. Finally, the

implications for other researchers are considered.

The rivers of life Create rain dew and oceans

Never ending flow

39

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i The 1840, Treaty of Waitangi promised Māori as the first peoples of New Zealand, equal participation in

all future decision-making processes. Such participation could guide intercultural relations and interactions

within New Zealand and be aimed at self-determination for Māori and social justice for all. Despite the

promises to Māori, as a charter for shared power and collaborative decision making in determining the

processes to be employed in running this country, and for Māori to be able to determine their own destiny

as the first people, the fulfillment of these promises are still being sought in the legal court systems at the

beginnings of the twenty first century.