Going Back and Forth: Reflections on research methods at a tribal school

Author’s note: The writing in italics demarcates an “insider” voice, one which calls on epistemic privilege to validate ideas and considers emotions and “all the details of the ways in which their oppression is experienced” to be an essential way in which knowledge is constructed (Narayan, 1988, 36). Bound in concrete examples, these thoughts are often theoretical.

ABSTRACT

In this article I write about my experience of stretching the definition of dissertation “research” at a tribal school.  Given my particular research problem (cultural curriculum development), how I conducted research became, at least in part, a response to the community. I identified community building as a part of the response to the problem of schooling and curriculum and felt it had to become part of the way of doing research. “Reciprocity”–going back and forth between the problem, the practice, and the community–-became the guiding force in my methodology. Rather than prescribing a particular formula for research in Native communities, I am suggesting that the model of a “situated response,” particular and dependent on context, could ground research in community, as well as academic, concerns.

RELEVANCE TO COMMUNITY

Looking back at my dissertation a full year after I have finished, I am still trying to sort out exactly where the “methods” are. And so I write this article, this slice of my research, with methods as a focus, but also to show through example how much the “way” of doing research was inextricable from the research and its context and cultural locations.

My intention in going to the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe reservation was not to do research. Being of mixed heritage (Fort Peck Lakota, Chinese, and White), I had many personal as well as professional reasons for wanting to “go back” to the reservation. (Going back means touching a place of the past and the future that belongs to all of us de-tribalized, adopted out, colonized, and made‑not‑to‑feel‑at‑home people. “Going back” means remembering to touch the places that bring us together. “Going back” means I am not from there, the way someone raised there is, and I will never be a part of that community in that same way, but it also means no better and no worse.)

I originally went to student teach, then to teach, then to stay, and in the process, wrote a dissertation. This article is an attempt to continue the reflection that was so much a part of the original work. It is a retrospection on my methodology. The ways in which I did the research, the “methods,” were not clearly delineated before I started the work. Instead, my goal was to explore a problem that was relevant to the community in a way that responded to that particular context.

Judging from readings by other Native scholars (such as LaFromboise and Plake, 1983) as well as from the oral traditions of the Indian community, there seems to be a growing Native‑oriented, or First Nations, ethic for doing research in our own Native American communities (Christensen, personal communication, 1994). My sense of this “ethic” is that the emphasis shifts from “research for research’s sake” (or perhaps for the sake of “knowledge in the abstract”) to research that serves some specific purpose or need of the community.

I believe this ethic is at least in part a response to the historical circumstances of being colonized. Specifically, I understand some Native people to say they resist exploitation being replicated under the guise of “research.” The exploitative role of anthropologist, for example, has long been critiqued and at times undermined by Native peoples through oral traditions as well as written ones (see Deloria, 1969, and LaFromboise and Plake 1983).

THE “NOT-GOD TRICK”

The war is not between Indian and White but between that which honors life and that which does not. It is fought within ourselves as well as within the world (Hampton, 1991, p. 296).

What is the purpose for doing a dissertation project anyway? To get a Ph.D.? To get a job at a college? How about to take the time out to put thoughts with experiences and voices of community people and do some foundation work for cultural curriculum development that includes community building, as part of the vision, part of the process, a part of the way the school changes and becomes a community‑cultural center. That’s my vision.

An important goal for me was to avoid playing the all-knowing expert role in the research. Within the written text this meant not assuming an invisible or universal voice-‑hence the importance of the reflective quotes. On the ground, I tried not to make sweeping generalizations about Indian education nor to assume that I could speak for the entire community. This would have been untrue to my experience and antithetical to the idea of community building as I understood it.

What it’s like to suddenly become “Auntie” to 300 kids and know that in three years I’ll have to write something about them, something which does not betray that trust and relationship….What it’s like to be a “mixed blood” in 1995 and in every community I live in to feel either “exotic” or somewhat looked down on (I heard a song about a HALF BREED on the radio just today), not quite “authentic,” never quite completely respected…… And then what it’s like to work at a tribal school where the real, the earth‑shaking work is all about identity; finding a space and a place for yourself in the fast changing world without getting caught in the crossfire of tribal politics. What it’s like to try ever so hard to fully, intelligently comprehend all this, while still maintaining the freedom and dignity to laugh, cry, sometimes not understand-‑and feel it all.

RESEARCH AS INTERVENTION

When I started to limit “my” research problem to the very most narrow definition, the burning question was the question I took from the community: how do we teach and learn in a way that supports, not undermines, our culture? Twenty years ago when Native students walked out of the public school here in Hayward, Wisconsin, discriminated against but not beaten, this was the same question they carried with them. Revisiting this question, I began to see ways in which my research could act as an intervention, not simply a documentation or analysis, of a problem that was well known.

For example, I knew traditionally elders were the teachers, the historians, the storytellers. I wanted to ask them their advice, but beyond that, I wanted to help build a bridge for them back to the school, where they could once again hold that place of honor called “teacher.” Instead of simply interviewing I got involved with a community project to establish an active Elders Council for the school.

Contradicting the history of research exploitation was a starting point for my methodology: Relationships of reciprocity replaced relationships of exploitation. Here I draw from Carl Urion’s (1991) idea of a First Nation’s discourse of learning. Most importantly, I tried to emulate the idea of reciprocity and mutual respect in my research methodology. This meant that the people I “interviewed” or gathered stories from were people I was involved with in an on‑going, two‑way exchange. They were people I had some kind of relationship with before the formal “interview.” Also, interviews were intended to strengthen existing relationships, not to create a new or “artificial” relationship solely for the purpose of RESEARCH.

I am thinking of the time I went to “interview” Lucy. She was quite happy to have me visiting, but when I started to ask her, “What should be taught at the school?” she told me that in the past three years of working with the elders I had been asking that question. I had already been given the answers, in so many different ways. We spent our time sipping coffee, and I listened to other stories that day. I was a little surprised and somewhat delighted. It made me feel as if I had been doing, and asking, what I had wanted to all along, and that was understood.

The relationships, of reciprocity and respect, ordered the methods. This made my research a “process” that cannot be replicated but which is situated within the particular relationships among myself and other community members.

Sometimes in my interactions with the elders I would ask a direct question about the meaning of curriculum for the Lac Courte Oreilles Schools, and the response I got was not an “answer” but rather a story about the boarding schools. This is how the chapter on boarding schools came about. I interpreted their stories as a way of telling me that the boarding school stories were an important piece of the puzzle of curriculum and schooling at the tribal school today.

I was concerned with researching a question that originated from the community, while also being acutely attuned to their responses. Oftentimes responses took the form of stories or advice giving. I wanted to know how these responses might be incorporated to reorient the research process. After hearing a half dozen stories about boarding school experiences, for example, I began to ask for these stories in my interviews and ask myself how to organize the dissertation around them.

My writing came from being a part of discussions, listening to stories, taking action within the community, and reflecting back on practices. I was able to “give back” to the community by teaching a course on culturally relevant pedagogy for teachers, staying an active part of the Elder’s Council, and organizing curriculum projects that were directly inspired by the theoretical discussions with community members. Each activity provided more insight, more writing, and more questions. In summary I was a part of the community I was writing about. I believe that going back and forth (see Lather, 1991) between stories, teaching practice, organizing, and writing helped me to keep research grounded in the concerns of the community.

Maybe “going back” really means going back and forth, for me, for now. So publishing something on methods is not so much “selling out” as it is paving a way for other scholars/community members like myself. As I feel yet another version of a dualistic and fatalistic choice emerging‑-smart or pretty; Indian or raceless; scholar or community member‑-I rush to object! Isn’t it time to evolve beyond impossible choices in the academy?

Mary “Fong” Hermes currently teaches Native Issues in Education, Multicultural Education, and Social Studies Methods in the Educational Studies department at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. She has a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. She hopes to continue her work and research at tribal schools and colleges in the Great Lakes area. She can be reached at mhermes@Carleton.edu. A version of this paper was presented at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Chicago.

References Cited

Christensen, Rosemary (1994) Personal communication, National Indian Education Association Conference, October 15‑17, Minneapolis.

Deloria, V. ( 1973). God is red. New York: Delta Books.

Hampton, E. (1993). Towards a redefinition of American Indian/Alaska Native education. Canadian Journal of Native Education 20(2), 261‑309.

Lather, P. (1991). Getting Smart: Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern. New York: Routledge.

Narayan, U. (1988). Working together across difference: Some considerations on emotions and political practice. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 3(2), 31‑47.

Urion, C. (1991). Changing academic discourse about Native education: Using two pairs of eyes. Canadian Journal of Native Education 18(2), 1‑9.