Chilisaindigres

Notes on: Chilisa, B (2012) Indigenous Research Methodologies. London: Sage publications.

Dave Harris

She is a Botswanan. There is a organisation that met to discuss indigenous research in Botswana.

[This is a conventional ed tech-type textbook with little summaries, exercises and bullet points -- has she been colonised? Overall,there is a lot of repetition of the supposed central values of indigenous cultures, all of which assumes homogeneity in those cultures as in simple mechanical solidarity. except for very rare acknowledgement of hierarchies.It is full of abstractions like individuals and communities. The stuff on the distinctive ethics of indigenous research is similarly suspect. It stresses respect,avoiding biases, staying reflexive and all that, and looks pretty much like standard advice in conventional research. It is all set against some nasty exploitative rapacious colonial alternative which might have existed once. As it is, it just gives the 'elders' the right to censor. It is also very naive about participation between researchers and researched and whether this can ever survive once the researcher leaves the field and writes up the research for academic journals etc -- so there is reciprocal symbolic violence, with the elders ruling stuff out if it is seen as nontraditional or sacrilegious, and the researchers ruling it out when they get home if it is insufficiently relevant to academic purposes]
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Chapter 1 situating knowledge systems

This begins with a quote from Scheurich. She argues that current research traditions are indigenous to the Western academy, [ie limited to the West, not universal] exclude knowledge systems from the colonised groups. She is interested in decolonising and individualising dominant research and post-colonialism.

Social science needs spirituality, respectful communal forms of living, relational realities, forms of knowledge that are predominant among nonwestern others. She finds the usual research process disconnects from the multiple relation she has with her family and community, where there are honorary kin. Her totem is a crocodile. These are Bantu ways of life, but they seem similar to Australian aboriginal ones. New and development programmes formed a special Centre for Scientific Research, Indigenous and Innovative, knowledge (CESRIK) at Botswana and she is a member. They discussed what was meant by indigenous knowledge, then to tried and gather more information perhaps a workshop, invite community elders. Someone pointed out difficulties of translation [in every sense] [did they solve those?], and apparently, some indigenous experts were worried about copyrighting their knowledge.

All academic discourse has its own unspoken rules, notions of truth and evidence, but the Western one cannot be allowed to simply claim it is knowledge and the others are, for example sorcery.

There has been a local study of the Mazenge cult to show the challenges. It is a cult that talks about spirituality, spirits of the bush, is practised only by women (who see it as an 'affliction') and has concepts like sacred space. However, talking about it is taboo and access to the spirit medium is not possible unless she is being possessed, ruling out conventional interviews. This raised all sorts of ethical problems about consent, what can be written about on the basis of indirect knowledge, what might explain community sanctions against understanding Mazenge, and whether community copyrights to knowledge were being infringed [so what happened? — It is an unpublished thesis]. Broader issues are raised about being respectful and inclusive, the philosophies that underpin research methods, evidence and analysis, and whether the subjects of research if they are indigenous people are given equal rights, or being continually marginalised.

Research in this postcolonial indigenous approach means the adoption of a strategy to study an issue of interest. It needs to be systematic, it often starts with a review of the literature on the choice of the research design, then there's a sample and instruments for data collection and so on. It is also 'a power struggle between researchers and the research' (7) citing Foucault. When you research you can also label, describe or prescribe. You have to be careful not to perpetuate Western research paradigms that implies superiority. You need to be responsible, show respect, reciprocity and allow for the rights and regulations of the researched, follow ethics guidelines favoured by the indigenous peoples.

Is social science methodology developed in the West universal? Some people would say so uncritically and they might display '"the captive mind"' or a colonised mind. This has occurred through education where cultural heritage is marginalised. We need to excavate the problem of the struggle between the West and the knowledge of the Other.

Dominant Euro Western research paradigms ignore the impact of colonisation and globalisation and so 'carry with them an imperial power and… are colonising' (8). Imperialism here means the acquisition of an empire of overseas colonies and the 'Europeanisation of the globe'. It is also a metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory, it divides the West from the Other. Othering is meant in Spivak's sense where Western knowledge becomes the norm and other knowledge systems are inferior. Hall sees the West as involving ideas events and relationships which allows the classification of societies into binary opposites and 'condenses complex descriptions'(nine) [the reference is to an essay he has written in Hall and Geiblin eds Formations of Modernity 1992.] Colonisation is a brutal process involving invasion and loss of territory destruction of existing systems, external political control and economic dependence, destruction of local knowledge and 'subjection to overt racism' and colonised minds. There are political and scientific forms. It began in Africa in 1884, and territories were given new names, White people claim discovery of various natural sites, indigenous peoples knowledge was dismissed as irrelevant often in a 'violent way'. A 'positivist paradigm' was imposed, where people became objects of research, and researchers claimed unlimited rights of access to data and information. In social science disciplines positivist assumptions led to the generation of laws and theories that claimed generality, such as standard conceptions and formulations in psychology allegedly applying to everybody. Decolonised research requires taking a clear stance against scientific colonisation and issues like the acquisition of data.

Globalisation for Spivak is an extension of colonisation, this time through investment and the collaboration of '"comprador indigenous capitalists"' (10). One example might be searches for cures for HIV AIDS where people in colonised societies were objects for research and drug trials [supplied to sex workers in Cambodia in a dubious bargain, raising issues of rights and responsibilities]. African indigenous knowledge of plants and herbs have been stolen, for example the 'hoodia cactus plant' in the Kalahari, which can stave off hunger, so a UK based company working with South Africa isolated the active ingredients and has renamed it as its property and made a diet pill [she hints that there might have been some contest over this].

Postcolonial research is still contested, because some can read the 'post' to mean that colonialism is over, while others see it as including people 'with diverse and qualitatively different experiences with colonialism' (12), involving the struggle of all nonwestern societies that were colonised. The project is to get all such people to reclaim their languages and cultures, there is a place for Euro Western research methodologies in collaboration with lived experiences and indigenous knowledge, 'balanced lending and borrowing from the West'.

She means to include among the colonised other people in Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia, some 'ethnospecific groups' living in the West including African-Americans and Caribbeans, immigrants and others. They still suffer scientific colonisation and colonisation of the mind. Indigenous in this case involves different ways of thinking with third and fourth world and marginalised people, how they perceive reality, come to know, the value systems they have that inform research processes. 'Euro Western research paradigms are… indigenous to Euro Western societies' [she means determined by them, limited to them?] (13 but it follows that the two thirds majority in the world might see reality differently. Indigenous research works with local phenomena instead of importing theory from the West, is context sensitive and locally relevant building on local experiences, it can be integrative combining Western and indigenous theory, its assumptions about reality knowledge and values 'are informed by an indigenous research paradigm' [just one?] . Linda T Smith says the term indigenous people is relatively recent emerging in the 70s out of the struggles of American Indians and the Canadian Brotherhood movement but now has an international reach.

Lots people have discussed decolonisation, which is a process of putting the 'concerns and worldviews of the colonised other at the centre'. First the colonised mind has to be liberated and then cultural practices, thinking patterns and values that were once oppressed have to be revived. There is a critique of disciplines [social science] and how they have theorised about the colonised Other to exclude their own knowledge and how Western knowledge is legitimised, for example how anthropologists use abstract observations rather than indigenous accounts, and thus impose '"theoretical and methodological frameworks"' (15). Bishop on the Maori is also cited.

There might be five phases in decolonisation — rediscovery and recovery, mourning, dreaming, commitment and action [Laeuni 2000]. The first involves interrogating the captive mind and letting the oppressed come to define their own terms and rules. Then there is lamenting the continued assault as part of healing, as when, for example she asked herself why the researchers were not making a difference to the lives of her people, why they distorted it. Then dreaming involves an reawakening of history, worldviews and indigenous knowledge to imagine other possibilities, and we are all invited to do this after we have found indigenous literature, or perhaps looked at lived experiences, oral traditions, sayings and proverbs, or talked to indigenous researchers. Commitment follows and turns on redefining the role of research and community development and political activism to challenge colonisation rather than just committing to conventional research and the 'passive dissemination of research findings' (16), sometimes, ironically, to export back to colonised countries. In the last phase, actions to affect social transformation exist after the Others given a voice and empowered. Researchers have 'moral responsibility to support the colonised Other in their belief that their collective experiences, indigenous knowledge, and history are valuable' (17) [but not necessarily entirely self-sufficient?].

Linda Smith has provided some strategies for us. We need to deconstruct and reconstruct, interrogate material that 'has wrongly been written' involves negativity or deficits that pathologise the Other. Then we need to go for self-determination and social justice for those 'disempowered by Western research hegemony'. We need to seek legitimacy for alternative methodologies and aim at social research to correct perceived deficits and allow the 'realities, knowledge,s values and methodologies of indigenous people' to come to the fore (18). We need to develop a suitable ethics and notions of responsibility. Some professional associations already have them, sometimes with the cooperation of indigenous people as in New Zealand and Australia. Sometimes this takes a contractual form, apparently. We might consider writing indigenous languages like Ngugi does. We need to then internationalise indigenous experience [no contradiction?] To organise global struggles, study the past and develop critique of 'the imperial model of research'.

The postcolonial indigenous research paradigm is a set of belief systems emanating from 'the lived experiences, values and history of those belittled and marginalised by Euro Western research paradigms' (19). She means it in the same sense as Kuhn as a way of thinking and seeing the world, informed by philosophical assumptions about reality, ontology, ways of knowing, epistemology, and ethics and values systems, axiology. [Not really Kuhn then]. There are also assumptions about methodology. Scholars have investigated these matters among the colonised and their views should be addressed and should try the research process. One common thread 'is that people are spiritual beings with multiple relationships that should be nurtured' (20), and there is a lot of emphasis on relational ontologies and so on.

In more detail, ontology deals with 'the essential characteristics of what it means to exist', and it should be studied relationally via connections human beings have with the living and nonliving, including land, the earth, animals. Indigenous people emphasise I/we not I/you. The Bantu talk about this as Ubuntu, and have slogans like '"I am because we are"' (21). Epistemology asks about the sources of knowledge and how reliable they are, including a relation to concrete data. Relational forms require relations, knowledge is shared, not sought by an individual, '"a relationship with all of creation"' [somebody called Wilson], so we are all responsible to all these relations (21) [veers over into ontology surely]. Axiology is the analysis of values, origins, purpose and acceptance of what is true, and how they influence daily experiences it covers ethics and aesthetics and religion. The key here is relational accountability — respect, reciprocity rights and so on. All parts of the research process are related and the researcher is accountable to all of them and should see that benefits accrue to both communities and the researcher [knights move will screw that]. Instead of I think therefore I am, we should say '"I am human therefore I belong. I participate. I share"' [Desmond Tutu] (22). Some researchers used Ubuntu to resist normal ways of going about research, to decolonise, to guide them to understand responsibilities and obligations and promote 'community, belonging oneness, togetherness and well-being' [1 researcher used it in Malawi].

There are decolonising methodologies to better represent and give voice to the researched, and respect their rights and ownership. This is been ignored by traditional social sciences. Techniques here might include conventional interviews, or talking circles, or alternative research methods as long as they are compatible with indigenous people. We have to remember that the conventional social sciences are indigenous to Euro Western societies and are 'either antagonistic to the history and cultures of non-Western societies or have no strategy to give voice to their cultures'. They may be racially biased as in Scheurich and Young . Critical indigenous theory and critical race theory is better recovering at the voices of the oppressed.

Some White scholars have criticised the dominance of Euro Western paradigms and argued for the integration of indigenous knowledge systems. Some are Third World feminists who advocate coalitions, and a mixed approach to knowledge and theory in order to help the oppressed survive. The key is to resist universalisation. Alternatives are cultural partnerships with collaborative working to interrogate theories and methods and their embedded assumptions. We are to avoid essentialising, including essentialising the indigenous and seeing it as fixed and unchanged. Instead there might be a '"third space"', a space between [advocacy of border thinkers?]. And indigenous research paradigms should also be interrogated because they might potentially exclude people within them, for example on the basis of gender, race or able-ness. Bhabha wants us to guard against and exclude '"all hierarchical claims to the inherent originality or purity of cultures"' (25). What we are left with is a tapestry, mosaic. [as unlikely as diatopical hermeneutics -- how much do I need to study before I can really grasp Bantu philosophy rather than reducing it to my understanding?]The best examples include postcolonial indigenous feminist methodologies.

First we have to understand Euro Western research paradigms as she proposes to briefly describe them. They are conventionally divided into positivist interpretive and transformative each with their own philosophical assumptions and techniques.

Positivism 'holds that scientific method is the only way to establish truth and objective reality' (26) -- if you stuck to it you wouldn't believe that witches exist [fancy that you deluded colonisers]. She draws on Hitchcock and Hughes here and goes on to implicate Aristotle and his realism, which was material and quantifiable, Bacon and Locke who developed empiricism based on the senses, Comte who brought them together and coined the term positivism. Now there is post positivism influenced by 'critical realism' (27) and here there is a reality independent of our thinking, all observation is fallible, all theories are advisable, we can know nothing with certainty. However they still believe that there 'is a reality independent of our thinking that can be studied through the scientific method'. Objectivity involves using multiple measures and triangulation. This approach describes most of the research practices together, but they're similar so 'will therefore be treated as belonging to the same family'.

In more depth [oh dear], these nutters believe in a single tangible reality that is constant, objective and independent of any interest in it, measurable, may perhaps only be known imperfectly and probabilistically. The natural science paradigm [this is a woman who has read Kuhn!] (28) refers to empirical testing confirmation or disconfirmation, generalisation, hard data independent of the values of the researcher. Absolute truth arises from 'only the right data–gathering instruments or tools' mainly questionnaires or experiments. The aim is to discover laws and principles and do prediction. They believe in value freedom, objectivity and neutrality, although post positivists admit that values can have a strong influence. In methodological terms the aim is prediction, test, cause and effect relationships, operational definitions for quantitative work specifying variables. [She gives examples of how literacy and ability are operationally defined and research conducted in a case study, over three pages, it's not bad and uses standard tests of numeracy and reading ability, to be correlated by age and sex.]. Her comment is that it may not be relevant 'the life experiences of people', and that they might not share the meaning of what it is to be literate, it is 'more about what researchers want to know', as when the researchers themselves admitted that this was a rather simple test based on what the Botswana government had said. It was technocratic, ignoring ethics and morality, following orders and thus legitimating dominant groups. These ideologies need be challenged and we now have to think of using a literary survey using local and indigenous knowledge on literacy.

Interpretive paradigms can be traced to Husserl and Dilthey. Phenomenology use human thinking perception and other mental acts to describe human experience, which is where truth lies. Truth is therefore multiple and contextually bound, so there may be no consistencies between cultures. As a result 'research should produce individualised conceptions of social phenomena and personal assertions' [what crap] (32). Hermeneutics on the other hand involves reading and interpreting texts and choosing between competing interpretations by relating parts to a whole. The interpretations are also contextual and dependent on the identity of the researcher, their 'gender, age, race/ethnicity and socio-economic background' [dear God].

These mutts believe that reality is socially constructed so there are 'as many intangible realities as there are people constructing them' so if you believe witches exist this is so in your personal reality. There is no common reality. This direct challenges positivism. Realities from all cultures are legitimised, even though some have clearly been declared invalid by colonisers, including those in Botswana which turn on 'connectedness to earth and the spirits'. Interpretivist believe that knowledge is subjective and truth lies within experience, so what counts as truthful is culture bound and contextual 'although some may be universal'. This should allow different communities' stories to 'find space as legitimate knowledge' but again colonisers usually do not allow this and even interpretivist research operates within its framework. Interpretivists believe that social enquiry is value laden and researchers report 'values and biases'. If the point is to understand people and experiences, research should occur in natural settings and questions should evolve rather than being established beforehand, and should be open-ended and descriptive. Researchers still gather the data, but now include their own values, ideologies and situational states. They need to establish trust. They use 'ethnography, phenomenology, biography, case study and grounded theory'. It is quite different from colonisation which operates with separation and binaries but needs to challenge power relations between researchers and researched, and fails to see that social construction of knowledge has been influenced by the long history of colonisation.

Transformative paradigms belong to people like Gilligan opposing the role of White male intellectuals and a focus on male subjects. This has led to complaints from American black people of marginalisation. There is research 'with the aim to emancipate or transform' , citing Lather or Mertens. Marxism is a theme, on class determination of knowledge but there are also feminist theories and Paolo Freire — and CRT. [Oh dear] Reality is historically bound and changes according to social political and cultural power, while different versions are privileged over others. There may be a surface and deep structure. Knowledge is true only if it can be turned into practice and the relation to practice is crucial, especially the development of group action: this follows emancipation. Research is a moral and political activity pursuing social justice and views are selected which head that way. Research aims to destroy myths and illusions, uses both qualitative and quantitative methods and lots of techniques of collecting data, and participants are often involved [a case study is provided for them on African rural literacy and the problems of learner rejection — students are invited to do research to find out why there is this resistance and what might be done, some of which involves building on traditions of patience, punctuality and practicability, and overcoming colonial learning.] .

Postcolonial indigenous research methodologies share assumptions with the transformative paradigms but additionally advocate decolonisation and indigenisation and stress the value of indigenous knowledge, such as oral traditions as sources of knowledge, even rethinking conventional concepts of literacy to turn to indigenous ideas as in the case study.

So relational philosophy is crucial in decolonisation. Indigenous perspectives can be integrated into dominant research paradigms but this may not be the most effective strategy and a new postcolonial indigenous research paradigm might be required instead. We have to be critical about it though [nice tables summarise the main differences between the paradigms and the indigenous research paradigm — that one is much more focused on colonisation and reconstructing the benefits of indigenous knowledge and its relationality including those with the universe. It claims to be participatory, liberatory and transformative, partly based on 'philosophic sagacity, ethnic philosophy, language frameworks, indigenous knowledge systems, talk stories and talk circles' as well as borrowings from the others.

[While slightly better than most with the old research traditions stuff, this loses the nice clear binary between positivism and indigenous knowledge. The latter now differs from interpretive and transformative stuff by being focused differently on specifics, and nominating specific forms of research methods like oral forms and relationality. Loads of paradoxes and contradictions eg between subjective oremancipatory knowledge and traditional]

Chapter 4 Postcolonial Indigenous Research Paradigms

The idea of indigenous knowledge became popular in the 1970s. It can be specific to particular locations. Interest arose from reaction to colonisation and historical oppression. It is 'used synonymously' with traditional local knowledge as opposed to the Western Academy and its institutions (98). It may develop after long-term occupancy of a place, it might be based on traditional norms values and constructs, as in Africa,it might include different forms of knowledge including belief in the invisible order of things and versions of science.

Quoting Grenier ( 1998), there are six main characteristics (99).:

Indigenous knowledge is cumulative, based on generations of experiences 'careful observations and trial and error experiments'. [common-sense versions?]
It is dynamic constantly adding new knowledge and external knowledge.
All members of the community, elders, women, men and children have indigenous knowledge.
The quantity and quality of knowledge that the individual possesses 'will vary according to age, gender, socio-economic status, daily experiences, roles and responsibilities in the home and the community, and so on' [so you need to consider well-informed informants only?Or at least assess their typicality to avoid Mead's mistake by talking to unusual Samoan girls?]
indigenous knowledge 'is stored in people's memories and activities and is expressed in stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, dances, myths, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, cultural community, laws, local language, artefacts, forms of communication and organisation' [transparently expressed?requiring no skilled semiotics from researchers?]
it is shared and communicated orally and by specific example as well as through those practices mentioned above like dance. [so it is subject to memory loss, distortion, censorship etc]

It is important in developing actual methodologies: it's embodied in particular languages and experiences and symbolised artefacts, so this is 'the source of literature to draw from to challenge stereotypes of postcolonial societies' (100) instead of written accounts by colonisers or in their language [naive claims of authenticity -- assumes some Eden before colonisation etc] . It can generate new topics, themes categories and modes of reporting. It can help unveil knowledge that had been ignored before imperialism and colonisation, often embedded in local language. It helps articulate the perspectives, culture and values of the 'colonised Other' and others marginalised. One example is Maori culture developed into Kaupapa Maori, or the 'relational ontologies, epistemologies and axiologies' found in African cultures [all of them?]. This helps reclaim cultural and traditional heritage, to decolonise thought and protect against further colonisation is. It validates indigenous practices. It might provide solutions to the challenges faced by the colonised, it can lead to respectful and ethical research which is [immediately] useful and beneficial [never easy to judge] . It can enable collaboration between researchers and researched and community participation.

Indigenisation itself involves opposition to methodological imperialism 'and hegemony' (101) and is supported by modern critical theory, postcolonial theory, CRT, feminist theory and others. It challenges researchers to invoke indigenous knowledge to do the good things above, and maybe to pay particular attention to unwritten texts. He likes post-colonialism as a means to decolonise European research methodologies, combining theoretical approaches found in the West with indigenous perspectives — for example indigenisation of local music by combining traditional musics with elements of Western-style pop. There is a blending process, the extent to which depends on the extent to which the researcher is already found in the local culture, can be justified by the needs of indigenous societies, and the extent to which its conceptual framework derives from the local 'religion, cultural traditions, norms, language, metaphors' (102), and so on, as opposed to 'universalistic or Western literature'. We need to research 'culture specific variables', and tailor methods to the culture of the researched, perhaps using local language to construct research instruments like questionnaires or interviews and 'use methods concepts and variables emanating from indigenous knowledge systems'. Indigenous research therefore occupies a continuum according to the amount and degree of its framework and values or methods that come from indigenous knowledge.

It might be as simple as discovering a local phenomenon that challenges Eurocentric theories even though it uses their methodologies — 'the encounter stage' [citing others] (103). Western approaches encounter limits and respond by trying to adapt their concepts to local circumstances. In one example, a Navajo woman conducted some qualitative research on a local Navajo community to investigate the concept of self-determination and used participant observation, document analysis and interviews. She observed Navajo values and respect and upheld their protocol. Above all she operationalised self-determination 'from a Navajo community perspective' (103) even though it had been originally '"explicated in euro – Western ideology"'. [more details would be nice]

At another level there might be 'cross context comparative research where local conceptual frameworks or categories are used to modify Euro Western ones'. One example in Zimbabwe tried to develop 'an indigenous measure of common mental disorders' and develop psychometric diagnostics as a result. Existing Euro-American measures were not 'adequately validated for use in diverse settings in Africa'. They did focus group interviews first to try and generate concepts of mental illness and then qualitative interviews with patients who had 'conspicuous psychiatric morbidity' [apparently already identified though using conventional assessment and screening?]. Then they collected idioms in Shona provided by the patients and classified them. They then developed questionnaire items which required yes or no answers producing the 'Shona Symptom Questionnaire' (104).

At a more advanced level still there is 'the immersion – emersion stage' [Church and Katigbak]. This warns against rejecting ideas uncritically just because they originate in the West, and accepting those uncritically from within indigenous communities. An example might be research paradigms 'based on relations' to be discussed later, beginning with nice social relations as part of a framework, developing inclusivity and then augmenting the academic discourse on research methods and urging academics to bear in mind the interests of the researched.

[Lots of student activities]. Subsequent examples — one including someone who 'positioned[ themselves] within a prevalent indigenous epistemology by acknowledging the wisdom of elder women [Australian aboriginal it turns out]. [Lippie 2007, PP 105 – 8] and inviting their partnership in storytelling' with the claim that this led to learning which was as valuable as the literature on research and pedagogy that had gone before. It also stresses the non-linear nature of research methods, connectedness and relations, group discussion, for example, or holistic learning involving all the senses [all these were provided by the elderly women]. She [?] hopes to publish this conventionally so that other researchers may learn and conduct suitably respectful and beneficial research. Deep respect for the capacities of aboriginal women were maintained throughout, together with full participation[impossiblereally -- the women were acquainted with the full academic background to the research?] . Diverse knowledge and expertise was valued and as much as possible [!] power distributed equitably among the research partners. Individual women chose to participate in different ways, some in discussion, others by reflecting on and interpreting the data. Feminist traditions were also drawn upon, especially Lather, and gender was a constant theme as was the empowerment of women. She wanted to 'respect various levels of literacy' with matters like the consent form, and offered one-to-one interviews if there were difficult topics like menopause. She noted that discussion had to be respectful of others, and conflict avoided, but there were differences expressed through 'more diplomatic means' like a story or comment that 'clearly conveyed a contrary opinion'. To 'honour Western methods' [!] [get a publication out of it or a qualification?] she used modified grounded theory, but she did bump into some 'paradigmatic, ontological and epistemological differences' which have been noted by other people [and rather disappointingly it ends there].

Because of epistemological and ontological differences, it might not be possible to insert indigenous knowledge into Western paradigms, or to adapt them. Western researchers are sure to face a challenge, although they might need to recognise that they '"can never really remove the tools from their underlying beliefs"' (108) [never discussed again] . It is clear that philosophical assumptions are at stake as he has discussed earlier. He now wants to discuss African perspectives in particular and some from indigenous people in Canada and Australia [references on 108].

African perspectives centre relational ontology, and 'how worldviews on being are implicated in the social construction of realities' as summed up in the concept of Ubuntu [which he has discussed earlier].There are important relations among people, living and nonliving, and spiritual existence 'that promote love and harmony among peoples and communities' [no war?] There is a whole web of connections between people in direct contrast to the Eurocentric view of humanity in Descartes [apparently revealed in his motto I think therefore I am], which represents a concept of self individually defined and '"is in tune with a monolithic and one-dimensional construction of humanity"' [Dear God --an initial conceit taken for a mature position] In Ubuntu the group has priority over the individual, '"without crushing the individual but allowing the individual to blossom as a person"' [must be nice if it works]. The motto is '"I am because we are"'.

The problem is to develop so that neither the community nor the individual overwhelm each other [yes there is a whole subject devoted to this called sociology], and what indigenous knowledge can contribute. One example concerned an HIV/AIDS testing policy. Initially that seems to have been developed on the basis of an individualistic approach to knowledge and its application, stressing the rights of the individual over those of the community, seeing the whole issue as one of human rights governing testing which protects the rights of the individual, including a right to privacy, with a stress on voluntary testing. However, in such a policy 'community rights in many African cultural perspectives are silenced' (109 – 10) and African communities can no longer creatively comment on the strategies to prevent HIV — for example 'a policy requires that all members to get tested'. [Anynasty consequences for HIV positive individuals once identified?]

What about relating to the earth and the nonliving? There is a view that sees mother Earth, '"plants, animals, minerals, rocks, insects, et cetera"' is a life, having a spirit and as interacting with people, as a kind of relative. In another Botswanan example totems are shared and are represented through nonliving things or living things like animals. One diagram shows 18 such totems. People are addressed by their totems 'as a sign of respect for their identity' and they have to respect and cherish their own totems. Totem sharers have shared values appearing in rituals. The sort of thing can 'create methodological frameworks that capture the voices of communities' [although he seems to leave that as questions, or, at best, to urge us to look for metaphors]. We can certainly drawn social networks based on these connections [horribly vague about the connections between different clans and how they are regulated — needs Lévi-Strauss].

The idea of connection between people, relations, is 'spiritual and promotes love and harmony' (112), is an organic matter, seeing each other in God, feeling each other's pain [!] The Greeks [aren't they Euro-Western?] called it agape, selfless and altruistic love, disinterested love, aimed at the good of one's neighbour, regardless of any social differences, loving others for their own sakes, love '"seeking to preserve and create community… A willingness to sacrifice in the interests of mutuality and a willingness to go to any length to restore community"' [sounds very much like mechanical solidarity, only stressing all the nice bits]. There is a feminist version urging love to mobilise people to press for change regardless of their differences [again followed by lots of open questions]. Folktales might be useful — [and he cites a well-known African story where someone who believed in killing all elders is eventually saved by an old man]. This warns us against discrimination. As researchers we should capture the data in ways that are 'inclusive of all social groups… Gender, race/ethnicity disability socio-economic status, age, religion and sexual orientation' (113) [I bet the last one would be popular in Nigeria]: everyone has a place and no one should harm the welfare of the community.

Turning to Australia and Canada, we find relational ontology again, for example greetings involve asking people about their hometown or relatives, and relationships are soon discovered 'through mutual friends or through knowledge, with certain landmarks and events' [no hope for you if you haven't got these]. There are circles of relations and that implies that when we research them we should try to establish similar connections, say through similar greeting rituals [but not, obviously, ask them where they are from]. There may be a particular relation with the environment or land again with implications for research to respect these, or to make sure that settings are familiar to the researched. Spirituality is often increased by relationships and other exercises and if recognised by researchers might help explore interconnections between the sacred and the practical aspects of research. There may be a necessary connection to ancestral spirits. Knowledge itself might be regarded as sacred and seeking it as a spiritual quest, requiring an initial prayer or ceremony. In these, minds bodies and spirits are all regarded as legitimate ways to gain knowledge.

A specific example turns on work with indigenous people of North America who use tobacco as an important cultural symbol [Lévi-Strauss!]. It is used to thank people ask for help or information and share stories. It is connected to a legendary figure who smoked tobacco and established brotherhood and sisterhood and peace, and persuaded people that pipe smoke would carry thoughts and prayers to the creator. Initial problems of entry to the group were solved by a [key informant] who advised the researchers to buy some pipe tobacco and place it [as a gift] in the middle of the group, which apparently showed respect and good intentions, and even overcame resistance from the community over 'intrusion into their lives since the colonial period '(115) [it might have been the actual mechanisms of giftgiving too, of course]. Most postcolonial indigenous societies require a process of connection through shared values or practices that show respect or acknowledgement that there are connections to the living and the nonliving, or the spiritual, as with tobacco smoke.

Relational epistemologies refer to relational forms of knowledge not individual descriptions of knowing which 'have dominated euro Western theories… For a long time' (116) [badly needs updating from the days of gentlemen scientists, although even they met together and wrote to each other. It must be some residue of the individual genius theory?]. Knowing is socially constructed, knowers have connections. 'African perspectives' [sic] see general beliefs and concepts of peoples stored in their languages and practices, traditions and myths as representing these connections between themselves and the community. This appears in their 'medical science [!], religion, childbearing, agriculture, psychology and education'. There are some accepted authorities in these matters, 'whether people, institutions, or texts'. Participating in events and observations of nature help to gain knowledge, as does recalling history, stories, 'visions and spiritual insights'(117). These views are important in claiming rights to construct knowledge 'in accordance with the self-determined definitions of what they want to know and how they want to know it'.

We now turn to relational axiology, apparently already discussed, a matter of developing ethical theory and practice and research. Dominant research ignores imperialism and colonisation, including academic imperialism — 'the tendency to denigrate, dismiss, and attempt to quash alternative theories, perspectives or methodologies' and methodological imperialism — 'a collection of methods techniques and rules that valorise the dominant culture'. It is based on the dominance of euro Western languages and on the archives of literature they possess which are often 'unfavourable to former colonised societies and historically oppressed groups'.

Bantu have a relational axiology rooted in Ubuntu and this helps them build an ethical framework emphasising accountable responsibilities of researchers and respectful relations between researchers and researched, including nonliving ones (118). Researchers from North America and Canada also stress 'respectful representation, reciprocal appropriation, and rights and regulations' and urge researchers to develop a suitable manner to build respectful relations between researchers, participants, and the topic of study, and 'to all of the indigenous relations. They also need to contribute or give back, share growth and learning. Linda T Smith [hurray!] talks of the need to question ownership interests and benefits and the role of the research in framing the research agenda designing the questions, carrying out the work and writing up and disseminating the findings. Again this has to be respectful to build relations with the researched, to explain who the researchers are and where they are from, to build respectful relations and connections and even to develop 'long-term relationships with the researched' (119) [still ignores the knight's move, though]

The researched become co-researchers. They should be trained and empowered to participate, provided with skills [but don't they already have indigenous knowledge?] They do not value anonymity since without knowledge of the teller, a story can lose its power. A case study provided for students turns on a piece on indigenous research projects aimed at better understanding and provision for the needs of indigenous people, fully attempting to build a suitable method acknowledging their methodology, ontology and axiology (PP 120 – 122). It stresses shared aspects of ontology, epistemology, axiology and methodology and the need to put them into practice supporting indigenous people. In particular '"critiquing others work does not fit well within my cultural framework because it does not follow the indigenous axiology of relational accountability. Critiquing all judging will imply that I know more about someone else's work and the relationships that went into it than they do themselves"' [which is the problem in essence].

Researchers should become storytellers with relationships with the listener, and one researcher recommends thinking of writing to their children [!], Writing in the first and second person, following cyclical themes, using a combination of [qualitative methods] like 'talking circles' as a form of focus groups, almost seminars, treating people as co-researchers, following proper protocols when addressing family or friends, establishing rapport — this can often lead to an '"opportunity to ask candid questions"' [bit exploitative]. Ethics may differ from the 'dominant academic way', for example in using real names in order to be held accountable to the people and make them accountable [although it seems he gets explicit permission to do so first, and uses pseudonyms in other cases]. Apparently anonymous information loses power. Overall analysis is also an ongoing process involving sharing ideas in 'indigenous research methods seminars and conferences' [but not in subsequent publication].

Overall we have seen that there are understandings and indigenous research paradigms, stressing relationality, and there is particular agreement on 'ethical principles that nurture harmony' and 'relational accountability that emphasises responsibility of the researchers and the participants to each other and the rest of the community'. [These are summarised in a handy table, 123. It includes useful pointers such as critical analysis should be aimed at the relationship between coloniser and colonised, researcher and researched, 'elders are as important as libraries', a 'cyclical approach as opposed to a linear approach to the research process is preferred'. The researcher has a responsibility and a role 'in questioning the hegemonic role of colonialism and imperialism in the construction of knowledge'. This need to 'critique and resist colonising hegemonies and promote liberating research approaches' also appears on 124].

The final activity cites a self-report measure of 'Africentrism… The degree to which a person adheres to the Nguzo Saba (seven principles) in African and African-American culture'. They developed 25 Likert scales to test alternative forms, and then of course, assessed internal consistency, construct validity and refined the exercise into a better 15 item version. [This isn't euro Western rationality then?] They wanted to assess the effectiveness of culture based services, requiring that they grasp the cultural characteristics of groups and individuals 'considered relevant to effectiveness', and assess individual variability. They did manage to develop a self-report measure which turned out to be quite reliable and valid. That had to be a brief measure so it could be added to existing protocols for client assessment and be easy to administer requiring no special training, and capable of self completion. They got the principles from previous literature. They are very happy with their forms which were easy and readily understood, and fairly favourable in terms of validity, although requiring further field testing. [one fascinating detail, not further explored, is that one scale seems particularly relevant to African-Americans].

Chapter 6 Culturally Responsive Indigenous Research Methodologies.

[There is a standard methods intro, not very good, with some additional points about indigenous research like avoiding rehearsing the pain of colonialism one to understand people in the social context, not using obviously biased Western methods]. We also remember that there can be differences from region to region we need to 'acknowledge the local histories, traditions, and indigenous knowledge systems that inform them' (161) [raises implications for some of the generalisations that are to follow, for example Afrocentric perspectives.

We start with research paradigms, theoretical frameworks and then choose a research approach and consider data collection methods — here we might choose 'an indigenous data collection method' or postcolonial one. We might need to ask what part is played by 'ethnic philosophy, philosophic sagacity, cultural artefacts and decolonisation of interviews' (163). We should draw on theory to interpret analysis and interpretation of data, and stress our role of ethics which might include 'the role of the researcher as a transformative healer with responsibilities to others' (164). Then we consider validity and reliability.

The first requirement is that 'research participants can see themselves in the descriptions' and that there was enough confidence to act on the findings. She is only going to talk about qualitative approaches of course and validity 'from a postcolonial indigenous perspective' (164). The researcher needs to be aware of threats to credibility, although subjective research is not necessarily unreliable and invalid, misleading for the researcher. That stance has led to rigid procedures and language, but qualitative research should be judged under different criteria say Lincoln and Guba. It should consider 'credibility for internal validity, transferability for external validity, dependability for reliability and confirmability for objectivity' (165). We should avoid any over simple procedures that reduce data, although she is going to discuss some.

Qualitative research operates with multiple realities, multiple truths so credibility should reveal multiple realities held by the participants. This is helped if research participants are urged not to respond with the desired social response, or safe response, so the process of connection should be addressed first and relationships built, spending lots of time in the field, and doing observations will identify salient issues. Once things start to become repetitive, you have probably done enough. Debriefing should use neutral, searching questions and it should also occur with research participants 'who ideally should be co-researchers, and with the sages and the elders of the community' (166). Negative cases are also valuable and should be documented so that we can revise working hypotheses. A notion of progress and development should be recorded, such as changes in belief on the part of the researcher, and whether they have kept an open mind.

There are memberships [and we dealt with those?]. We might consider triangulation to enhance credibility, assuming that multiple methods or data or investigate strategies 'can eliminate biases in the study' (167. We can triangulate methods, data sources, investigators and also theoretical perspectives: we should include indigenous knowledge theories.

There is 'referential adequacy' turning on the trustworthiness of the participants, especially the researcher who should be familiar with the setting, have a strong interest in theoretical knowledge, be able to conceptualise qualitative data, and the ability to take a multidisciplinary approach, and have good investigation skills [this is apparently based on Miles and Huberman]. Close connections between researchers and participants can create difficulties however [basically going native] and this requires reflexivity about the researcher's thoughts and feelings concerning problems and ideas, which have to be recorded. A journal or diary is useful and should include records of: the emotional tone, difficulty of interviews, relationship with the interviewees, difficult or embarrassing moments, any surprises, and any emerging ethical dilemmas (168 –9).

Transferability means external validity in quantitative terms, where representative samples are selected to generalise findings. Qualitative researchers however deal with 'situation unique cases and generalisation of findings is not always necessary', as in biographical studies, for example. Ethnography does involve generalisation, however and transferability can be enhanced through 'sampling and dense description of the context of the study' (169) specific samples might be selected, say of knowledgeable participants. Other techniques include snowball sampling where key informants pass on the contacts, intensity sampling where phenomena are 'strongly represented' (170), homogeneous sampling where we need to describe similar characteristics [do soft quantification in other words], random purposive sampling, to reduce the size of the sample, dense description, background information about the participants, context and setting to enable future comparisons.

Dependability is the qualitative version of reliability, accepting that human behaviour is never static and that human occurrences are unique. That is why qualitative researchers find replication 'not feasible or defensible'. The issue is rather whether results are consistent with the data collected, although some variability is expected. We might enhance these [reassure ourselves] by doing what we can to increase credibility. We can also do stepwise replication with two researchers or teams, code and recoding exercises. Confirmability is the equivalent of objectivity and refers to 'the extent to which findings in the study can be traced to data derived from the informants and the research settings, and not to the researcher's biases' (171). Things like reflexivity and triangulation can help, and so can external auditing.

Ethics are important especially in postcolonial frameworks, and there is a particular obligation to go beyond conventional research and imagine other possibilities, for example, to 'accommodate the researched's ways of knowing, and to wish for the researched what we would wish for ourselves'. This involves notions of fairness, authenticity of various kinds and positionability, voice and self reflexivity.

Fairness involved balance between the different views and perspectives without silencing anybody. 'Catalytic and tactical authenticity' involves training participants in 'specific forms of social and political action, if the participants desire such training' (172), assuming they are co-researchers and those involved. 'Ontological and educative authenticity' refers to the level of awareness by researchers and participants and others about people who surround them — for example research might be defined as ceremony which helps acknowledge relationships and spirituality. 'Positionality or standpoint judgements' draws on standpoint theory, which argues that ' knowledge is always referenced to some standpoint' (173), involving the 'interests, perceived purposes and knowledge of different interest groups' [which will drastically affect the other issues like transferability?]. Specific communities and research sites might be 'arbiters of quality' for example when communities have established ethics guidelines as the Maori do. The text should address 'voice' include 'polyocality' where research participants speak for themselves. It normally informs and can be read as giving voice to them [very dubious]. Transcripts may be required to reproduce these different voices, and there might be an issue about naming participants.

'Critical subjectivity or self reflexivity' refers to 'three selves that researchers bring into the research process' [according to Reinharz] — the research self, 'brought selves' and 'situationally created selves'. All these apply with a distinctive voice, and researchers should reflect on themselves as 'knower, redeemer, coloniser and transformativehealer' (174). Ethics should also involve accountability, respect and attention to social injustice, to the history of the researched, and the history of the methods used. It should draw on 'appreciative enquiry… desire centred research… positive psychology' to reveal positive aspects of resilience and resistance and survivability.

We can expect wide variations in' age, socio-economic background, sexual orientation, ethnicity, health, able-ness, language spoken' and we need to bear this in mind to give appropriate representation. We need to share power and challenge unequal power of all kinds, including that between researcher and researched. We must avoid binary opposites, for example, and an undue reliance on 'archival literature, which in most cases is informed by deficit– and damage–centred research' (175).

Kaupapa Maori (KM) relates to Maori philosophy, traditional ways of doing things and thinking. It is culturally safe because it is mentored. It addresses Western cultural superiority and restores Maoriness, 'the indigenous system that was in place before colonisation' [some chance of that!] It has been seen as a 'localised critical theory' through which general emancipatory goals are pursued. It is a weave of Maori and Western forms of education and aspirations. Smith summarises it as related to being Maori, connected to Maori philosophy, taking for granted Maori language and culture, and concerned with the struggle for autonomy. There are six principles — relative autonomy, cultural aspirations, culturally preferred pedagogy, 'mediation of socio-economic and home difficulties principles' (176), kaupapa '(collective vision, philosophical principle).

She goes on to discuss a particular Maori creative relationship framework used by a Maori Institute to guide research and express identity. It claims to analyse fundamental concepts philosophies and beliefs. This objective is to contribute to an intellectual climate that realises socially inclusive laws and institutions, and there are two 'polyphyletic traditions' [pass] which apparently help people reconcile their needs as individuals and collectivities. In detail, it means identifying suitable literature, consultation with skilled or wise persons, a selection of participants, according to their knowledge of Maori culture [so often grandparents and great grandparents], a series of 'semistructured in-depth participant driven discussions' (177) guided by reflexivity, rapport, reciprocity and re-iteration, and intentional reflexivity involving self research and self understanding and the ability to 'transverse their own culture and that of others'. The latter seems particularly important [border intellectuals?].

Knowing oneself becomes important, leading to self research using things like the Johari window, 'not indigenous to non-Westerners' (178) [and illustrated and developed pages 178 – 9]. Rapport requires mutual respect and trust and is 'enhanced by face-to-face interaction, involvement in the community, and other personal interactions', and researchers may be required to their genuineness and wordiness. Reflexivity develops a sense of connectedness and apparently 'removes the need for empowerment, feelings of separateness distance, and the need to be in charge' (180). Reiteration involves recycling descriptions and analysis, making comments on transcripts, giving everyone the freedom to edit material: this in turn requires faithful transcription, including 'refraining from correcting grammar or polishing styles', indication of gaps, giving the participants lots of time to comment and taking 'the speaker's decision… as final'. Apparently you then do thematic analysis which is again referred back to participants and options discussed

Ethical issues arise, including subjective responsibility of the researcher, a genuine commitment and lots of self questioning, objective responsibility — 'the researcher should remain committed to sound quality research and ensure that "all genuine interests are served by honest, robust research"' (181). Participants are free to define and redefine the role and they have a right to informed consent including knowledge of the use of the material. There should be an agreed mutual obligation for respect and reciprocity — 'koba'.

Cyclical postcolonial indigenous research methodologies include 'the medicine wheel' (182), which emphasises interconnectedness, circularity, including communication with the natural world and ancestors. This particular approach has been described by a Cherokee woman — 'the medicine wheel paradigm encompasses the holistic integration of humans and the natural world… The Four Directions or Four Grandfathers represent a complex system of knowledge' [details follow, seemingly involving different compass positions to remind you to acknowledge various things like if you stand in the East knowledge connects with research participants and develop all your senses, whereas the South represents the natural world. Looks like indigenous masonry]. Others have used the metaphor of the seasons, again apparently based on Native American Indian ontology, to describe the role of the ethnographer and how to proceed, including acknowledging various threats to knowledge production [seems pretty conventional and involves gaining entry, collecting data and watching the report].

This stuff is explained even further [oh good]. For example the East perspective represents spiritual experience where the Earth is alive, responsive and requires rituals including stories, song, prayers: it is also a starting point for ethnography. The South represents the natural world and involves understanding symbols, using emotional experience and 'speaking from the heart with authenticity' (184), deep involvement. The West represents bodily aspects of knowing, including examining yourself, the North represents 'mental processes of balancing intellect with wisdom' [stay there, I'll use this as a model for management consultancy!]

Then we get onto 'the Afrocentric paradigm', attributable to somebody called Asante (1988) — there are apparently African ways of perceiving reality value systems and they should be put on equal footing with Western scholarship. The basic beliefs are: researchers must be responsible for uncovering 'hidden, subtle, racist theories that may be embedded in current methodologies' (185): they must work to legitimise African ideals and values as valid frames of reference, and they must 'maintain enquiry rooted in strict interpretation of place'. The last is apparently the most important and leads to Afrocentrism, which apparently involves 'pluralism and philosophical views, without hierarchy' to accommodate the diversity of Africa. It can be used for other marginalised groups, though because it is anticolonial. Relationships with the researched are crucial and openness to unconventional methods, collaborative and participatory.

Asanti credits the Nile Valley civilisation as the source of these principles, the search for justice, truth and harmony, seeking harmony with the culture of the people, knowledge as a vehicle for improvement. There are seven cardinal virtues — 'truth, justice, brightness, propriety, harmony, order and balance, and reciprocity' (186). They can be used with concepts derived from Ubuntu.

Ubuntu [again] is spiritual, involves an organic relationship between people so we can recognise ourselves and God [in Tutu's version]. Our humanity is 'influenced by our connectedness to the earth' and all its inhabitants and is celebrated in Botswana at least through rituals, taboos and totems. They want to hold to their traditional conceptions of God, however. They see life as a web of relations of interconnectedness and to understand it requires 'back-and-forth movement that connects to this web'. To exist is to respect others and oneselves so there is an emphasis on agreement and consensus, so that when issues are discussed by communities 'there may be a hierarchy of importance among speakers, but every person gets an equal chance to speak up' (187) [no agenda setting or other power plays as in Lukes?] It ends in consensus, but this is not '"an oppressive universal sameness"' (187) because plurality has to be taken seriously, as does '"alterity, autonomy and cooperation"'. Individuality, particularity and historicity are respected and so is difference with other humans. This leads to an emphasis on dialogue 'preserving the Other in their Otherness, in their uniqueness, without letting the Other slip into distance' [which solves all the problems raised by Levinas?], So consensus means 'open-endedness, contingency, and flux'.

Ubuntu has survived but is still marginalised by Western discourses so we have to go back and forth, do subversive research and undermine those that 'continue the violence and oppression' of colonialism [she has strange phrases about the violence and oppression of postcolonial indigenous communities' — must be a mistake] this restores the position of people who have been relegated to the lowest positions and encourages African Renaissance, being agents of history and transforming. The African worldview is at the centre of analysis — it may be impossible to do anything else (188), certainly not use other people's perspectives. This raises questions about who should be researching. Some people think only indigenous scholars, but in, there is more connectedness and a place for 'researchers from all worlds to see themselves first as related and connected' as long as they agree to build harmony and pursue justice. Research methods have to be contextualised and subject to ethical principles.

Ubuntu is as important as Nile civilisation sources, although it can borrow the seven virtues of the approach. This can involve the social sciences researcher being constructed 'as a transformative healer' (189), which in the African context means not only classical healing, but a prior understanding of self to see how it is ' unique yet related to the whole'. The implications for the researcher is to avoid colonising, respecting others, trying to reach the problems and holding strong ethical principles.

[In more detail — oh no]. Researchers must avoid colonising and its power relations, and this means decentring Eurocentrism. Postcolonial researchers can operate at this level using dominant Western discourse, or as healers challenging and resisting 'the blind Euro Western application of methodologies' (190) acting as members of the colonised and marginalised. This produces multiple knowledge production which is also interconnected and sensitive, should lead to questions like whose side am I on, am I doing enough to challenge dominant discourses, who exactly am I writing about and what needs to be rewritten.

Researchers must be careful not to act as imperialists and colonisers and to treat researched people as objects passive, defending their own authority rather than listening to the voices of the research. They must ask who owns the description of the people being researched and whether the voices have been captured in such a way that they can recognise themselves. This leads to 5 canons, each with nice African names — truth, commitment, calmness and peacefulness, justice and community [looks like it's in Swahili and there is some overlap with Ngozu Saba] these will establish rigour and credibility. There is a notion of truth grounded in people's experience,… Away from objectivity to 'truth, fairness, and honesty', (191) concern whether conclusions reached are representative of a consensus, how knowledge is structured and used, and how researchers must 'actively avoid creating, exaggerating, or sustaining divisions between within communities' and create harmony instead. This looks like the stuff we've looked at earlier with qualitative research, member checks and the rest of it, but there is an Afrocentric emphasis, for example research scholars should meet to discuss relevant issues and provide feedback, they should 'use the Internet and email system to solicit views and critiques of African scholars worldwide' (192), correspond with well-established scholars and engage in dialogue, analyse the data from an Afrocentric perspective, using these Afrocentric canons.

Researchers must not engage in Othering, through deficit discourses, often found in background literature and involving notions of normativity, for example blaming the spread of HIV on permissive female sexuality. They should consider if any harm or embarrassment will ensue and what countermeasures might be needed. It requires familiarisation with colonial epistemology and how it has constructed the colonised, and a willingness to debate and expose assumptions. This would be transformative healing, examining the assumptions and prejudices, how they portray the research, whether they show deficit thinking, and what evidence and gaps might be used to bring into question, moving back and forth between Western and indigenous literatures, including poems and songs and dances and so on — an example of the use of proverbs in her own work is found on page 194. The limits of Western 'hegemonic ethical standards such as the principle of informed consent' will soon be exposed and people involved more authentically.

We must respect religious beliefs and practices, although this might be difficult, for example in cases where reality is seen as connecting the physical and the nonphysical. We can get some data from biographies, or from personal relationships, for example in discussing totemism. Spirituality means we should proceed with care and love one another, show empathy and compassion, and one example turns on teaching school maths in a poor community, being considerate and respectful.

There is respect for the self and others, 'unification of the self with the environment' (195) rather than western individualism and contractual agreement. Genuine consent might be explored instead, and hidden exploitation avoided (by concealing the need for consent for example — still no discussion of the knight's move]. Circles of discussion might produce consensus, 'even after an institutional review board gives consent'. Consent may need to be continually sought and respondents might prefer to involve everyone in the family. They also might be concerned to respect their heritage. Such respect must inform data collections.

There is also the Mmogo approach (196) [guess what, the word in Setswana means '"relatedness, co-ownership, togetherness, co-construction and interpersonal threads']. A particular activity involves using visual images to get data about levels of social structures and meaningful actions. A visual narrative was constructed. Not relying on verbal accounts apparently allowed the participants 'to tell stories they would not have otherwise been able to do' (197). Familiar items were used as symbols to be decoded and deconstructed — cloth, beads, grass and so on. In Zulu culture, colours are particularly important. The analysis was nondirective, and proceeds after careful observation of the field. Researchers must particularly be cautious about using cultural items that might imply '"naïve and manipulative human agency"' (198). Researchers co-constructed this reality transparently and with full communication, inner '"tenets of informed compassion"', and only after informed consent had been obtained. An open-ended research question invited participants to make something with the materials they were provided which would tell us about something. Accounts are then gathered and participants were invited to comment on each other's presentations. Copious field notes then analysed. We have here multilevel processes of collecting and analysing and using the data, beyond the isolated individual. It helps 'explore the cultural nuances of community life' and deals with validity [member validity]. It must be aware of changing contexts. Meanings provided might be explicit unconscious at first but might then access an '"internal narrative… From the intermental life experiences and intramental images that are not accessible to direct observation"' (199). Any patterns or themes are discussed with the participants who connect them back to their presentations, and this provides '"insight into the symbolic meanings"'. There is a kind of triangulation involved. It is also ethical and requires good knowledge of how the community works.

Overall we can see lots of 'pragmatic assumptions' (201) for culturally responsive methodologies, building on relations and knowledge of specific cultures. This will help decolonise Euro Western methodologies and to include indigenous knowledge as 'part of national and international discussions'.

[Jeez...lots of repetition and Californian ethics, Hopelesssly dealist, no sources of conflict or difference are discussed etc]