Patrick Lewis

Storytelling as Research/Research as Storytelling

If story is central to human meaning why, in the research world, is there not more storytelling? Walter Benjamin (1973) noted that, “a story is different. It does not expend itself. It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of releasing it even after a long time” (p. 90). How might research not expend itself, but preserve and concentrate its strength?

Storying Treaties and the Treaty Relationship: Enhancing Treaty Education through Digital Storytelling

This paper represents preliminary findings of a collaborative educational research endeavour to take seriously calls for reconciliation with Aboriginal people within a Canadian context of ongoing colonialism. More specifically, the research takes place in the province of Saskatchewan, where treaty education is mandatory in K–12 classrooms. In this context, critical race theory is used as our theoretical foundation. Working with elementary students, their teachers, and members of the community to support the implementation of treaty education, we draw upon qualitative research methodology and the methods used in participatory action research and digital storytelling. These particular methods are congruent with an inquiry learning approach often used with elementary students. The paper describes the work of young people and their teachers in creating digital stories in which they explore the significance of treaty education and what it means to be a treaty person. It also explores the challenges of this work with respect to teacher, student, and researcher engagement and the ongoing systems of oppression that influence and inform the relationships between First Nations and non-First Nations people in Canada.

Initiating a New Story

In May 2011, at the seventh annual gathering of the Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI), Norman Denzin organized two town hall meetings for anyone interested in exploring the idea of creating an Indigenous Qualitative Inquiry preconference day. In this article, we share the story of a small group that met to imagine into being the first Indigenous Qualitative Inquiry preconference day at the Eighth QI Congress in May 2012. We share the call that connected our work with others, describe the events of the preconference day, and share our hope for Indigenizing the academy – a journey of hope that we acknowledge requires careful navigation as we endeavour to move respectfully and in a good way for and toward transformative change.

The erosion of play

ABSTRACT This paper argues children’s play is being eroded across four distinct areas: commercial media; fear and safety concerns; school curriculum and policy; and ideology. Drawing upon research evidence, theory and practice, the assertion is explored and supported to argue the significant consequences of play, its absence, manipulation and erosion. The argument demonstrates the difficulty of escaping ‘the rhetorics of play’ as articulated by Sutton-Smith [(1997). The ambiguity of play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press]. The contestation of play is not new, but what has emerged recently are discussions of play’s value, both in and out of school with emphasis on the importance of play and its contribution to child development and learning. Yet, despite all the research and discussion, there seems to be an erosion of play occurring across several play landscapes with the result of not necessarily a loss of play rather a decidedly narrower view of play.

Indigenous Knowledges and a Relational Peer Review Process

Indigenous epistemologies have existed for a long time, managing to survive colonization, war, genocide, and a host of colonizer policies and practices. Only recently has the academy taken an interest in Indigenous methodologies and paradigms, in particular in the field of qualitative research. Indigenous researchers and allies are thus engaged in a process of creating space for Indigenous ways of knowing and being within and outside academia. ‘‘Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life . . . ’’ (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 1). Although relatively new to the academic landscape, decolonization has been practiced and theorized in Indigenous communities since time immemorial, making Indigenous communities the centre of decolonizing theory and practice (Sium & Ritskes, 2013, p. i). As Tuck and Yang (2012) note, ‘‘decolonization is not a metaphor’’; for Indigenous people, colonization is now, every day, every moment. As Russell Bishop (2005, 2011) discusses, this struggle is one of freeing ourselves from neocolonial dominance in research ‘‘so that models of reform for the oppressed groups can be developed from within the epistemological frameworks of those groups, rather than from within the dominant’’ (2011, p. xiii). The Indigenous Inquiries Special Interest Group of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry has guest-edited two more special issues of the International Review of Qualitative Research, building upon the work of the first special issue (Lewis, Montgomery, Campbell, Ritenburg, & Diversi, 2013a). This third special issue is part of the ongoing effort to evolve Indigenous inquiries and methodologies within and without the academy. As guest editors of this third special issue, we took a step toward a decolonizing and Indigenizing approach to the creation of this issue

Critical Reflexivity on Indigenous Knowledge as a Mode of Inquiry

Indigenous epistemologies have existed for a long time, managing to survive colonization, war, genocide, and a host of colonizer policies and practices. Only recently has the academy taken an interest in Indigenous methodologies and paradigms, in particular in the field of qualitative research. Indigenous researchers and allies are thus engaged in a process of creating space for Indigenous ways of knowing and being within and outside academia. ‘‘Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life . . . ’’ (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 1). Although relatively new to the academic landscape, decolonization has been practiced and theorized in Indigenous communities since time immemorial, making Indigenous communities the centre of decolonizing theory and practice (Sium & Ritskes, 2013, p. i). As Tuck and Yang (2012) note, ‘‘decolonization is not a metaphor’’; for Indigenous people, colonization is now, every day, every moment. As Russell Bishop (2005, 2011) discusses, this struggle is one of freeing ourselves from neocolonial dominance in research ‘‘so that models of reform for the oppressed groups can be developed from within the epistemological frameworks of those groups, rather than from within the dominant’’ (2011, p. xiii). The Indigenous Inquiries Special Interest Group of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry has guest-edited two more special issues of the International Review of Qualitative Research, building upon the work of the first special issue (Lewis, Montgomery, Campbell, Ritenburg, & Diversi, 2013a). This second special issue is part of the ongoing effort to evolve Indigenous inquiries and methodologies within and without the academy. As guest editors of this second special issue, we took a step toward a decolonizing and Indigenizing approach to the creation of this issue through an open review process. We received a range of articles, essays, and creative

Feeling Special and Feeling Lousy

My teaching stories are, to borrow from Grumet (1991), “not extraordinary.” I tell them at the risk of offending scholarly sensibilities but these are the stories I know and carry with me. As Grumet points out, when these stories “are omitted from our scholarship, when we look elsewhere, anywhere, for our sources, our reasons and motives, we perpetuate and exaggerate our exile. We deny…and in that denial we cut the ground right out from under us” (pp. 83–84). Tanja had come to my class 4 months ago. Before her arrival, I had met with the principal, the special education teacher, and the district psychologist. They all had read the great tomes of information about Tanja and her previous experiences with the public education system and social services. The meeting was set to discuss her placement at the little school of one hundred K-8 students. I knew ahead of time that they wanted her placed in my grade 1-2 class even though she was 9 years old because I was the only classroom teacher asked to the meeting. I had listened to their reasons and then expressed my concerns and arranged for the necessary classroom support. She would arrive in a week.

Willow’s Way

Adolescence has long been viewed as a time of difficulties at best and turmoil and crisis at worst; however, many researchers, psychologists, and youth workers suggest that the evidence does not support this general, albeit persistent, perception. Nevertheless, many adolescents do have difficulties, turmoil, crises, and a whole plethora of other disruptive experiences during this period of development. This is one story about an adolescent girl as told from her parents’ perspective and experience of parenting her during approximately a 3-year period when she was 15 to 18 years of age. It is told through story but also through mixed media images. The story and the images both share and take over the pages with the “general story of adolescence.”