InDIGIqualitative research methods: Incorporating Indigenous science into social work qualitative research methods training

Indigenous science and corresponding art and media-based qualitative methods holds the potential to offer deeply contextualized and nuanced data gathering strategies and responses to pressing social issues in Indigenous and other marginalized communities. As such, it may help provide more complex and holistic understanding of social problems and effective solutions to pressing community health and wellness needs. This workshop is designed to provide participants with a foundation for advanced qualitative research methods with Indigenous and other diverse communities through using arts-based inquiry, visual praxis, storytelling, and interpretive methods for collecting and analyzing data. In her landmark book, Decolonizing Methodologies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) describes qualitative research as particularly responsive to Indigenous communities because “it has the potential to respond to epistemic challenges and crises, to unravel and weave, to fold in and unmask the layers of the social life and depth of human experience” (p. 103) by challenging representations, contextualizing and sharing storylines, and making meaning from “complex and shifting experiences, identities, and realities” (p. 103). Grounded in an Indigenous epistemological framework applied across intersectional and diverse communities, participants will explore how to rigorously investigate deeply contextualized questions about individual and social phenomena. Consistent with Indigenous ways of knowing, self-reflexive praxis and location of self in relation to community and knowledge will be prioritized as qualitative questions are developed and considered.