“I Hope this Brings Comfort to Others; It's Brought Me Comfort Too”: Ceremony-Based Participatory and Practice Research as Indigenist Feminist Methodology

Abstract

Rooted in Indigenist and critical feminist research principles and traditional Indigenous values and ethics in research, Ceremony-based Participatory and Practice Research (CerBPPR) is an essential approach for conducting research with, by, and for Indigenous communities. In this article, we define CerBPPR through presenting a project centering Indigenous health knowledge and storytelling, detailing the ceremonial protocols and practices interwoven throughout the research process—from design and development through data collection and dissemination. Through an examination of reflections from community members engaged in the project, core principles for research with, by, and for Indigenous peoples are illustrated as they are embodied and embedded within the CerBPPR approach. Findings from oral histories reflecting on the storytelling methods used in the research highlight the ways that community members felt healed, comforted, grateful, inspired, and connected to future generations throughout the project and demonstrate the promise of this approach as both research method and healing practice. In the spirit of feminist disruptions to mainstream research reporting, we use ceremonial prompts, moments of pause, invitations, and offerings to tap into the reader's humanity and embodied experience to approximate the sensory experience of participating in our storytelling/witnessing circle and as illustration of what is possible with CerBPPR.