Creative research with indigenous women: challenging marginalisation through collective spaces and livelihoods practices
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper we ask: “What are the opportunities and challenges that creative methods pose in terms of conducting research processes with indigenous peoples impacted by emergencies and disasters?” To do that, we critically examine the creative and collaborative methodological approaches applied in the research project, Moving with Risk: Forced Displacement and Vulnerability in Colombia. This project sought to understand the trajectories of risk of families who were forcibly displaced as a result of the armed conflict in Colombia and resettled in areas at risk of disaster.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is intentionally written from the perspective of the researchers’ positionality. In doing so, we embrace writing that is situated and embodied in the researcher’s experiences and positionalities. This reflexive writing allows us to question the methodological experience of the research project we are analysing and, at the same time, ourselves, “the researchers” be questioned by it.
Findings
In this paper, we show how creative methods and participatory research can foster awareness and become the basis for inclusive and reciprocal research processes with indigenous communities in disaster studies. Specifically, we show that the use of creative methods helped us recognise that agency needs to be framed in collective spaces with the indigenous women we were working with and in relation to their livelihoods needs. We argue that finding spaces to conduct collaborative research and recognize agency is inextricably related to how the researchers reflect on their positionality.
Originality/value
This article contributes to critical perspectives in Disaster Studies and to an overall understanding of the role that creative methodologies play in research processes with people affected by disasters. It provides a novel perspective on the opportunities and challenges of applying arts-based methods in disaster risk studies with indigenous communities in Latin America.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We thank all the Embera women who were part of this journey with whom we were able to learn and weave bonds based on trust and respect. We thank different members of the research team in Colombia and UK and are grateful for their support. We especially thank Tatiana Valencia Serna and Alejandra López Getial whose ideas and contributions were central to the research process with the Embera women. The wider team, without whom we would not have been able to create these collaborative spaces included Lina Andrea Zambrano Hernández, Roger Few, Hazel Marsh, Andrés Carvajal Díaz, Santiago Urrea Yela, Viviana Paola Grajales Vargas, Valentina Bedoya Cadavid, Miguel Ángel Hernández Ramírez, Giovanny Gaitán Arias, Laura Manuela Mozo Vélez and Luis David Acosta Rodriguez. This research was conducted as part of the project, “Moving with Risk”/“IdentificArte”, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, (ES/P004326/1) and the Universidad de Manizales, Colombia. We also received funding from the Indigenous Engagement in Research Partnerships and Knowledge Mobilisation programme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the UK.
Citation
Armijos, M.T. and Ramirez Loaiza, V. (2024), "Creative research with indigenous women: challenging marginalisation through collective spaces and livelihoods practices", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-01-2024-0037
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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