Qualitative analysis at the interface of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems: the Herringbone stitch model

Abstract

This article describes the methodological challenges and opportunities of qualitative analysis from a position of critical Indigenous inquiry. It does not present findings but rather demonstrates a process of critical engagement with different methodologies to realize the most appropriate way to analyze data generated by Indigenous research. The article explores ‘interface research’, drawing upon multiple knowledge systems for data analysis as a means of producing new knowledge beneficial to Indigenous communities. Linking Western and Indigenous systems of knowledge, the contradictions and congruences of a hermeneutic study are explored as they pertain to the analysis of 15 Indigenous women’s lived experience of family violence. Indigenous methodology, in combination with hermeneutic principles, defined the process of analysis at the interface. As a result, a qualitative analytic model was developed and is offered as an innovative example of Indigenous data analysis that maintains Indigenous integrity and sovereignty and facilitates benefit to Indigenous women.