ABSTRACT
Ethnographic research encourages inductive and in-depth exploration, in that it produces rich and complex data from which the meaning and significance of aspects of human behaviour and experience can be derived and understood (McLeod, 2011). Participant collaboration in research facilitates involvement in the knowledge-production process in a way that enables co-researchers to withdraw from familiar routines, forms of interactions and power relationships to question and rethink established interpretations of situations (Bergold and Thomas, 2012), as well as contribute to the development of approaches that might have direct benefit in the future, thereby ensuring the voices of marginalised populations are heard and respected. As a methodology that involves direct and sustained interactions with participants, within the context of their daily lives and cultures, undertaking a participatory process can deepen insight into participant perceptions on issues of personal significance. Through collaboration with adolescents who engage with the arts at school and in their wider cultural context, this research seeks to understand the relevance of cultural arts practices for the psychosocial wellbeing of adolescents who are affected by violence in their community. This participatory process uses diverse data collection methods that can reveal ways in which adolescents relate to the culture of youth in their community through artistic and musical forms that appear to mirror the narrative of violence directly affecting them. This framework also helps to capture the expressed and creative forms of cultural practice that serve to relate their emotional responses to violence in ways that empower the voice of adolescents and enable them to share feelings of grief and loss as a collective unit, while also preserving ‘multi-perspectivity and multivocality’ in the representation of findings (Bergold and Thomas, 2012). Through the methodological approach of participatory ethnography, a relational understanding of these issues is explored in the context of adolescents who reside in a community affected by violence in Trinidad and Tobago, with an aim to understand the potential for using cultural arts practices for improving psychosocial wellbeing.
