Learning How to Ask: Reflections on Engaging American Indian Research Participants

Abstract

I grew up in a family of storytellers. We were poor and lived in an isolated area in Northern California. As the youngest child of a large family, I grew up listening to my mother’s stories. We would walk the long lonely trails through the giant redwoods of the coast, her whispers and low voice echoing through the madrone, fern, and colorful flags. My imagination would soar, reliving the tales of the bobcat sightings along the trail, of forty-pound salmon caught in the Eel River, and of deer stalked and brought down by a single shot. The wind would catch my skirt as I ran ahead, hoping to seize the white “puff” of the make-a-wish weed. During these hours, I learned of my place in this world—where the Wailaki people came from, and how generations of uncles, brothers, and sisters were placed in the Federal Indian Boarding School. I learned how they survived and, thus I learned how to survive. I also became skilled at techniques to keep the stories alive, to keep the richness of the past vibrant. I learned how to ask—at the right time, a soft tone, a word, a glance, a murmur—so the tale would continue. Communication patterns and explanatory processes are culturally specific and not often compatible with research data-gathering approaches. Particularly in areas of medical research and health and health-care behavioral research, indigenous educators and researchers note their frustration when Western paradigms, academic traditions, and medical protocols and terminology are forced upon minority populations.1 Further, Linda Tuhiwai Smith points out that the term research is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism.2 Questioning the Western model of ethical inquiry, Denzin points out that the refusal to label indigenous peoples as subjects for the investigative methods of others is at the center of indigenous research.3 Further, it is recommended that researchers show respect by either demonstrating that they are listening, and to be careful and humble as well.4 This commentary shares the research experience of behavioral health Native researchers, describes processes, and recommends directions for Native and non-Native researchers in planning for and implementing research that gathers and analyzes stories from Native research participants. Detailed illustrations and processes can serve as a map for others to consider. The use of “standard” questions, scales, tools, and approaches that are not culturally sensitive or culturally appropriate can result in inaccurate and incomplete information. Questionnaires use predetermined questions that restrict the scope of the inquiry.5 Interviews are subject to researcher bias. Scales are often not culturally appropriate.6 For instance, although the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is one of the most frequently used personality tests in mental health, it is not recommended for American Indian populations. The MMPI contains questions regarding visions, voices, and other examples of beliefs, experiences, and explanations that are common in American Indian cultures, but indicative of mental illness in the Western paradigm, thus resulting in reporting and interpretation errors. Because of historical trauma; social and economic conditions; and differing cultural values and beliefs, MMPI scores may reflect erroneous results.7 Researchers should seriously consider their interpretive points of reference, which may be influenced by dominant cultural beliefs and divergent worldviews. Researchers working in indigenous populations are seeking better data-collection tools and methods that would provide the information (data) they desire and that would circumvent the biases and influences reported in traditional interviewing.8 One way of engaging American Indians in research is through the elicitation of stories. Storytelling is a long-held traditional practice employed by American Indians to impart educational and historical information as well as for entertainment.9 Stories are an often overlooked source of data, and this method of communication can be an important source of understanding lived experiences and can serve as a better measure of such constructs as quality of life, illness beliefs, and barriers to better health care. For researchers working among American Indian communities, storytelling is becoming an important tool to collect data on topics for which we know very little, particularly with regard to areas in which Western approaches have failed. For many ethnic groups, especially among American Indian populations, communication patterns and explanatory processes are culturally specific and not well understood by Western researchers. Even the form that stories take may be different among various cultural groups. Some groups use storytelling for entertainment, employing a skilled teller of myths and stories in order to entrance and entertain listeners. Other groups use storytellers as historians and educators to keep the past alive and to offer lessons. Still others employ storytelling as an explanatory process by which to memorialize or give explanation about important events. Given the opportunity to engage in a communication style that is comfortable, understandable, and culturally appropriate for American Indians, the researcher interested in learning more about American Indians may find that respondents participate fully and more openly during storytelling. Therefore, based upon knowledge gained by many years of research with American Indian populations, our reflections of successful approaches to engaging American Indian research participants are discussed in order to assist other researchers in working sensitively with American Indians.