Our Ancestors are in the Water, Land, and Air: Using an Integrative Approach of Indigenous and Western Research Methods for Community-Based Participatory Environment and Health Research

For generations, A’se’k - now known as Boat Harbour - was a culturally important place for the Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing First Nation. For almost 50 years, Boat Harbour has been receiving the toxic wastewater of a... [ view full abstract ]

For generations, A’se’k - now known as Boat Harbour - was a culturally important place for the Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing First Nation. For almost 50 years, Boat Harbour has been receiving the toxic wastewater of a bleached kraft pulp mill, leading to degraded ecological integrity and human health concerns. Since 2010 the Pictou Landing Native Women’s Association has mobilized, partnering with a team of researchers led by Dr. Heather Castleden, to conduct research driven by the guiding question: “Are we getting sick from Boat Harbour?”. The team engages in community-based participatory health research through Two-Eyed Seeing; they integrate Indigenous and western approaches to research to create space to build trust, cross-cultural respect, and leverage the knowledge and experience of both the academic and community-based researchers. As a result, the team is jointly conducting an eco-health risk assessment by balancing air, water, and toxicity testing with oral histories, community mapping, and ceremony and using both academicians and community-based citizen scientists to conduct the data collection and analysis.

The team has had many successes, despite operational challenges, over their four year partnership. This roundtable will explore the institutional and community-based barriers, challenges, and successes faced while operating between two worlds. Each presenter will share a digital story, a powerful tool for knowledge translation that emphasizes personal voice and experiences (such stories tend to promote transformational learning; they are also reflective of Indigenous oral tradition), to facilitate interactive roundtable discussion. Each story relays a different narrative from academic and community perspectives, exploring the successes and challenges of our work together, particularly with respect to the role that community members had as citizen scientists in terms of collecting air and water samples. The roundtable will conclude by sharing recommended approaches and strategies for navigating and overcoming community and institutional barriers.