Forward to ecological description of a multi-level community-based cultural intervention: reflections on culturally-situated participatory research.

Abstract

I am honored to have been asked to write a forward for this special issue of the American Journal of Community Psychology describing the recent developments in cultural intervention that have come out of one of the most thorough, grounded, and inspiring community-researcher partnerships I am aware of. This work, of course, holds a special place in my heart, as the academic research team was led for many years by my late father, Gerald Mohatt, and represents the fruit of a deep collaboration and commitment between numerous close friends and mentors of mine from both the University and the Alaska Native communities. My personal connection to this work has played a major role in shaping who I am as a community psychologist—my father’s life story and guidance remain my inspiration to serve the communities I work with today. But also, this work has influenced my intellectual development as central scholarly examples taught to me and my fellow students during our doctoral education in rural and indigenous community psychology. Whereas the story of this work and my father’s career begin prior to the development of the term Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), I was taught that CBPR is the only way to do respectful, culturally-grounded research, especially in indigenous communities. Further, my teachers and mentors, with a special nod to my father, taught me that the work presented in this special issue is the standard bearer for how to do ‘‘CBPR the right way.’’ But what does it mean to do ‘‘CBPR the right way?’’ A number of years ago, while at a conference on advancing the science of community intervention, I was sitting at a discussion table with a diverse group of health educators, researchers, and community partners. Our task was to discuss this question, that is, what characterizes good CBPR. One of our table members was an elder Navajo woman who was a long time CBPR partner with a group of University health researchers. As we were wrapping up our discussion, we decided that this woman should have the final say, so we asked her, what advice do you have? What do those of us in the health sciences need to do? She said, ‘‘You have to become family.’’ This answer was simple, but with ramifications that turn science as we know it inside out and violate core tenets of modern, western health and mental health care. Science and community health intervention from the perspective of becoming part of a community’s family needs to be grounded in deep and caring relationships. A science of collaboration is not about professional and objective distance, but emanates from proximity, commitment, and mutual care. Proximity, commitment, and mutual care are the work presented in this issue. Developing such a relationship is not just a process; it demands a reorientation of goals and priorities. It demands that community health research and researchers orient themselves to public service, and I would go so far as saying that academia’s ideal of scholarly production and advancement of the field’s knowledge become at least secondary. This of course gets to a sticky part of the subject—the social and economic demands of being a researcher, long established, preference scholarly productivity, as in, publishing peer-reviewed articles, attending conferences and participating a community of scholars, and securing new research funding, often with service to the university and teaching as well. However, N. V. Mohatt (&) Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Mental Health Program and the Division of Prevention and Community Research and The Consultation Center, Yale University School of Medicine, 3035 Center Green Drive, Boulder, CO 80301, USA e-mail: nmohatt@wiche.edu