Storytelling in a digital age: digital storytelling as an emerging narrative method for preserving and promoting indigenous oral wisdom
Abstract
This article outlines the methodological process of a transdisciplinary team of indigenous and nonindigenous individuals, who came together in early 2009 to develop a digital narrative method to engage a remote community in northern Labrador in a research project examining the linkages between climate change and physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being. Desiring to find a method that was locally appropriate and resonant with the narrative wisdom of the community, yet cognizant of the limitations of interview-based narrative research, our team sought to discover an indigenous method that united the digital media with storytelling. Using a case study that illustrates the usage of digital storytelling within an indigenous community, this article will share how digital storytelling can stand as a community-driven methodological strategy that addresses, and moves beyond, the limitations of narrative research and the issues of colonization of research and the Western analytic project. In so doing, this emerging method can preserve and promote indigenous oral wisdom, while engaging community members, developing capacities, and celebrating myriad stories, lived experiences, and lifeworlds.
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Biographies
Ashlee Cunsolo Willox is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at McGill University, and the former Co-Director of the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project, a community-led, capacity-building project dedicated to examining the impacts of climate change on human health and well-being in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada. She is continuing her work in Nunatsiavut through a community-led project examining the climatic and environmental determinants of mental and emotional health and well-being in Inuit communities. In addition, she is leading a multi-year, Canada-wide project examining locally-appropriate and culturally-relevant strategies to document, preserve, and promote Indigenous knowledge to help prevent, prepare for, and manage climate-change-related health impacts. Ashlee also researches and works within environmental ethics, capacity development, human-nature relations, health equity, and the determinants of healthy communities.
Sherilee Harper is a PhD Candidate in Epidemiology and a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar (Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)) at the University of Guelph. Her current areas of research interest include EcoHealth, public health, climate change, waterborne disease, and capacity development. She is the former Co-director of the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project, a community-led, capacity-building project dedicated to examining the impacts of climate change on human health and well-being in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada. She is currently on the Ugandan and Arctic Regional Operations Teams for the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change project (www.ihacc.ca), an international initiative examining the impacts of climate change on Indigenous health in Canada, Peru, and Uganda.
Victoria L Edge is a senior epidemiologist and Manager of Population Health Assessment Epidemiology for the Public Health Agency of Canada in the Office of Public Health Practice. She is currently working in the area of population health assessment and scenario analysis. Victoria is also an adjunct professor with the Department of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph. Her research-related activities have involved a focus on public health issues in Northern communities, involving enhancing community health surveillance and climate change impacts on community health related to infectious waterborne and foodborne illnesses. Her role as co-lead on the Public Health Program with the Canadian Water Network also allows for encouraging innovative and multidisciplinary research of water-related issues in Aboriginal communities in Canada. Victoria was also the research advisor on the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project, and is currently a Co-Investigator of the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) project, an international initiative examining the impacts of climate change on indigenous health in Canada, Peru, and Uganda.
‘My Word’: Storytelling and Digital Media Lab is located in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada, and is Canada’s first northern indigenous-created and indigenous-run center dedicated to using digital media technology and video to engage community members in research and cultural preservation and promotion (www.rigolet.ca). Created through the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project, the lab is currently staffed by Marilyn Baikie and Inez Shiwak.
Rigolet Inuit Community Government is the governing body of the Town of Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada, and oversaw the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project and currently manages the ‘My Word’: Storytelling and Digital Media Lab. The Rigolet Inuit Community Government is headed by Charlotte Wolfrey (AngajukKâk/mayor) and managed by Sarah Blake (Town Manager).
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Article first published online: October 22, 2012
Issue published: April 2013
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