| Title: Masthead |
| File: Masthead V1_I1 |
| Title: Ethical Anti-oppression and substantive political transformation in Research |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: N/A |
| Pages: 1-5 |
| Keywords: Critical Research Methodologies, Journal, Open Access |
| Authors: Dionisio Nyaga & Rose Ann Torres |
| File: Nyaga & Torres |
| Title: Indigenous African Elders Critical Teachings (ElderCrits) As A Methodology |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: Research remains a problematic term among Indigenous peoples, and when mentioned it evokes memory of pain, distrust, mistrust, and anger among Indigenous peoples. It can be argued that racist and colonizing research carried out in Indigenous communities, on Indigenous peoples, and on Indigenous Lands are partly responsible for the (mis)appropriation, (mis)presentation, (mis)education, distortion, falsification, downgrading, devaluation, and the destruction of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge systems (TCPS2, 2022). As rightly pointed out by many scholars, Eurocentrism has engendered theories and practices that justify without explanations almost everything from colonialism, racism, imperialism, to ongoing White logics in research. Within this context, many critical researchers have cautioned researchers who do research among Indigenous peoples to modify their research methodologies to suit Indigenous communities because the current Western social sciences research methodologies are racially and Indigenously biased. |
| Pages: 6-28 |
| Keywords: ElderCrits, Indigenous, Colonialism, Racism, Imperialism. |
| Authors: Paul Adjei & George Dei |
| File: Adjei & Dei |
| Title: Black Youth Mental Health: Reconstructing Identity Through Art-Based Research |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: This article presents data from a creative art-based activity conducted as part of an ongoing youth-centered phenomenological study with Afro-Caribbean Canadian youth (ACCY) aged 16-18 in Canada. The youth in this study were asked to create identity maps to explore what it means to be Black and Canadian and how their identity affects their mental health and well-being at home, school, and in Canadian society. The art-based activity of this study was informed by Fine and Sirin’s (2007) concept of the hyphenated selves defined as “the social and developmental psychologies of youths living in bodies infused with global and local conflict, as they strive to make meaning, speak back, incorporate and resist the contradictory messages that swirl through them” (p. 17). It is well-established in the literature that Black youth are grossly underrepresented in research within the Canadian context, meaning that their perspectives are often missing. Therefore, it is significant to gain their perspectives on issues that impact their overall mental health and well-being. The art-based activity empowered ACCY to become knowledge producers, allowing them to construct their own narratives about their identity and how it shapes their mental health experience. A theoretical analysis of the identity maps produced by ACCY using post-colonial theory, critical race theory (CRT) and the concept of anti-Black racism (ABR) reveals that being Black and Canadian are two separate and distinct identities Black youth embody with varied outcomes on their mental health and well-being. This article emphasizes the importance of using art-based research with Black youth as a decolonizing approach to gain their perspectives on race and mental health in order to better understand and respond to their mental health needs. |
| Pages: 29-43 |
| Keywords: Art Based, Youth Centred, Afro-Caribbean Canadian youth (ACCY), Black, Anti-Black Racism. |
| Author: Fiona Edwards |
| File: Edwards |
| Title: Belonging or not to the group studied as researchers: how to ensure legitimacy? |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: Using the research project example that we both carried out with Lebanese teachers and Syrian refugee teachers working with Syrian refugee students in Lebanon, this article explores to what extent, whether we belong to the group studied or not, can we question our legitimacy as researchers. The Making a Difference research project focuses on teachers’ educational intervention with refugee students in the emergency context in Lebanon. Teachers were asked to speak out and revisit their professional experience, based on a singular event linked to one of their refugee students, thus reconstructing a story of practice (Desgagné, 2005). Indeed, 10 stories of practice were collected in Arabic during the 2021-2022 school year from interviews largely inspired by the explicitation interview (Vermersch, 2017), lasting approximately 60 minutes via videoconferencing (given the impossibility of traveling during the pandemic). Thus, as a recent immigrant to Quebec, originated from Lebanon, and a white person of long standing settlement, but whose social and personal history has obscured the indigenous presence, we will address in turn our research motivation, our relationship to the terrain, to the participants, to the stories of practice collected and more broadly to the voices of these teachers that we wish to convey. This methodological reflection about our researcher positionality as insider, outsider or in between to the group studied will allow researchers to question the status quo in research standards and norms from a critical and reflective lens and to explore different forms of allyship. |
| Pages: 44-67 |
| Keywords: Positionality, Methodology, Critical Reflection |
| Authors: Rola Koubeissy & Geneviève Audet |
| File: Koubeissy & Audet |
| Title: How We Are Represented is How We Are Treated: The Pursuit of Transformative Anti-Oppressive Research |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: There is a clear need for research methodologies to guide those who wish to invoke greater ability for the principal substance of research, the process, and the goals of the scholarship to engage in an anti-colonial practice. Decolonizing social work research methodologies by engaging in anti-oppressive practice and critical tact knowledge supports the intention to detail research findings in a manner that allows the participant’s voice to overpower and decenter our analysis instead of giving credibility and centralizing our perception of others’ lives. Entitlement, privilege, and fear of losing power and control may prevent researchers from engaging in a transformative research practice. However, one has to question the moral and ethical conundrum if we do not seek to disrupt oppressive colonial-driven research practices that have been harmful to many communities. As researchers, we are trained to follow the ethical principles of respect for individuals, beneficence, and justice. We are often focused on something other than the ethics of representation in which we are concerned about accountability and responsibility towards the communities we study. In this article, we are advocating for a social work research practice that addresses the ways in which the positionality of the researcher and the research participants influence the anti oppressive research process and outcome. It is the understanding that we have a responsibility not only to individual study participants but to how the communities they belong to are represented and positioned for success by our research. At the end of the day, how we are represented by research is often how we are treated. |
| Pages: 68-82 |
| Keywords: Anti-Oppressive Research, Afrocentric Social Work, Decolonization, Transformative paradigm. |
| Authors: Notisha Massaquoi & Tolulola Taiwo-Hanna |
| File: Massaquoi & Taiwo-Hanna |
| Title: Black Based Research for practice and policy |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: This article attempts to argue for a broader discussion on what constitutes Black and Blackness and the need to reimagine research through a Black based perspective. To make this claim, this paper helps multiple aspects of conceptualizing Black and Blackness beyond the current singularity. Black communities are not a one-sided object that can be added and subtracted and have a conclusion or answer a research question. Such forms of universal western metrics of accountability have a way of discounting the variousness and compound-ness of Blackness. That is to say that Black communities are various and cannot be collapsed into a singular ensemble. Such a collapse of Black and Blackness that is supported and rooted in rational colonial scientific quantitative methods and performed numerically in such of truth has equally and unverifiable expunged Black life from knowledge making in ways that socially choke them. Such an expulsion is violent and connected to colonialism; and has contributed to social death of Black communities. |
| Pages: 83-103 |
| Keywords: Blackness, colonialism, anti-Black racism, research, ethics |
| Authors: Dionisio Nyaga |
| File: Nyaga |
| Title: A Blank Promissory Note: Ethics of Critical Black and African Research and Mental Health |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: This paper looks at the ways in which Black people’s survival with mental health has been made real through the everyday research processes and practices. The article pays attention to the ways in which research has reproduced forms of oppression that continue to affect the mental health among Black people. Questions of numerical understanding of Black people’s values and histories is core forms of colonial processes that continue to affect Black communities in new and unique ways. In that regard, this paper looks at the ways in which research can be done in ways that are ethical and relational to help bring forth substantive changes to Black communities. |
| Pages: 104-118 |
| Keywords: Blackness, Black, African, Ethics, Mental Health, Addictions |
| Author: Dionisio Nyaga |
| File: Nyaga |
| Title: Making Social Work Research Black – Beyond Number Politics |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: Current approaches to social work research have continued to push Black lives, bodies, experiences, and ways of doing, thinking, and being to the margins. When researchers do turn their attention to Black people and communities, so-called anti-oppressive and intersectional practices do little to center the humanity of their subjects. Instead, Black research subjects are objectified, othered, and silenced. Furthermore, research often appeals to political climates steeped in anti-Blackness; appeases the expectations of funders with their own biases and agendas; and paternalizes Black people and commodifies their realities rather than giving voice and honor to their truths. This article seeks to disrupt these colonial and Western approaches to research by challenging the systemic racism embedded in both our society and social work practice. With particular focus on some of the most vulnerable members of Black communities – 2SLGBTQ+ immigrants, refugees, women, and youth—the article explores research methodologies and practices rooted in theories that validate Black people’s ways of doing and being and decentres colonial values. As people experiencing oppression are best equipped to identify its ways of operating and pathways to disrupting it, Black and feminist theories are crucial to this work. This includes Critical Race Theory to disrupt the inherent racism in current research practices; Systemic Theory to examine how Black voices are silenced and sidelined to bury historical and contemporary truths; and Black Feminist Theory to critique the way that women, queer, and gender nonconforming people are objectified. |
| Pages: 119-143 |
| Keywords: Race and racism, colonialism, Black, feminism, 2SLGBTQ+ |
| Author: Patricia Bailey-Brown |
| File: Bailey-Brown |
| Title: A Life Trajectory of Filipino Women Health Care Workers: Making Sense of the Unknown |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: This article is a result of a critical research methodology that I employed in my on-going research project on the accessibility of mental services in Canada. Through a critical research methodology, I was able to make sense of the life trajectory of Filipino women health care workers. I would not be able to do it without the help of the participants. Through critical research methodology, the participants and I worked together to explore and dig deep into their lived experiences. This article will showcase the strength of Filipino health care workers and the effectiveness of a critical research methodology. It will also highlight how Filipino women health care workers make sense of the unknown. The article will include the findings and analysis and a conclusion. |
| Pages: 144-156 |
| Keywords: Filipino Woman, Health Care Workers, Violence, Canada, Philippines. |
| Author: Rose Ann Torres |
| File: Torres |
| Title: Enacting Anti-Racist and Activist Pedagogies in Teacher Education: Canadian Perspectives, Canada, Canadian Scholars, 9781773383507 |
| Volume: 1 |
| Issue: 1 |
| Abstract: N/A |
| Pages: 157-166 |
| Keywords: Teacher Education, Activist Pedagogies, Anti-Racist, Book. |
| Author: Vernando Yanry Lameky |
| File: Lameky |