Building relationships and shared understanding: Developing a community-based participatory action research project with an Inuit community

• Author / Creator

  Cassie, Rachel AE

• Introduction: Evidence-based, community-led health promotion initiatives can offer a culturally-grounded option to address the effects of colonization in many Indigenous communities. Community-based research offers valuable insight into community needs and priorities when planning, delivering, and evaluating health promotion initiatives. Indigenous research paradigms, including the Inuit Aajiiqatigiingniq Research Model, have been recognized as a valuable research framework to engage in strengths-based, community-led research with Indigenous communities. Community-based (CB) and/or participatory action (PA) research methods have been widely acknowledged to complement or be situated within many Indigenous research paradigms. Building relationships is an essential component of Inuit research paradigms and CB and/or PA research methodologies as these approaches to research are oriented around trusting and reciprocal relationships. Currently, most literature discussing Indigenous research paradigms and CB and/or PA research methods focuses on the outputs or findings. More research into the earlier phases of Indigenous and CB and/or PA research is needed.

  Objectives: This thesis has four, inter-related goals:
  a) Provide an in-depth narrative and critical reflection of my experiences with an Inuit community during Aajiiqatigiingniq Research Model’s piliriqatigiingniq and inuuqatigiitsiarniq stages.
  b) Characterize logistical requirements needed to advance research projects during the early stages of a CBPAR project.
  c) Describe practice recommendations for researchers wishing to build community relationships and foster community engagement in a research context.
  d) Identify policy recommendations for research and funding institutions to encourage and enable CB and/or PA research methods.

  Methods: This thesis is grounded in the Aajiiqatigiingniq Research Model and utilizes a community-based participatory action approach. Autoethnography data generation strategies were employed to characterize and analyze the relationship building phases of this project.

  Critical reflections of work completed: To build relationships and shared understanding with the community, I have participated in multiple discussions with the community’s Council, mayor, and other community members. I have worked to build trusting relationships with the community by demonstrating my relational accountability when liaising with outside institutions such as the Nunavut Research Institute, University of Alberta, and Health Canada. Work I have completed includes: 1) two ethics approvals from the University of Alberta’s Research Ethics Board, 2) research licensing from the Nunavut Research Institute, and 3) securing community- held funding from Health Canada. Due to COVID-19, I have collaborated remotely with the community which has led to some relationship building-related challenges. Additionally, I have experienced timeline and financial-related pressures and limitations imposed by various institutions, including the University of Alberta and Health Canada. Strategies I have learned to develop trusting relationships with community partners include respecting and following community processes, demonstrating humility, and seeking opportunities to promote community research sovereignty.

  Conclusion: This study is one of few that examines the relationship building stages of CB and/or PA research methods. Indigenous research methodologies, specifically the Aajiiqatigiingniq Research Model, necessitate conscientious relationship building between outside researchers and community members as a first step in research processes. Further research is needed to explore communities’ experiences engaging in relationship building with researchers and policies that will increase Inuit research sovereignty.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Community Engagement
  • Inuit Research Methodology
  • Community-Based Research
  • Participatory Action Research
  • Community-Based Participatory Action Research
  • Autoethnography

• Graduation date

  Spring 2023

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-r6qq-c669

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.