A narrative inquiry into becoming attentive to relational ethics in recreation practice

ABSTRACT

This article narratively inquires into the experiences of the first author and two recreation practitioners he worked alongside as they became wakeful to their relations as non-Indigenous people living alongside Indigenous peoples in a community garden project. The experiences shared highlight how they negotiated notions of professional competence tied to outcomes of programming, and how such narrow stories silenced the relational aspects of their practice. By inquiring into the experiences of each recreation practitioner, the purpose of this inquiry is to show how they made sense of living ethically in the field as a relational practice and how that shifted their relations in a community garden project.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational ethics
• ethical space
• non-indigenous and indigenous relations
• recreation programming
• narrative inquiry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Community members in this writing self-identified as Indigenous.

2. Pseudonyms are used throughout.

3. Clandinin (2013) explained that in narrative inquiry the concepts of living, telling, retelling, and reliving have particular meanings. Clandinin stated that, ‘We understand that people live out stories and tell stories of their living. Narrative inquirers come alongside participants…we call this process of coming alongside participants and then inquiring into the lived and told stories retelling stories. Because we see that we are changed as we retell our lived and told stories, we may begin to relive our stories’ (34).

4. Caine, Estefan, and Clandinin (2013) describe this relational in-between space as a place composed between people where we can discover new ways of knowing and being. This space in narrative inquiry is necessitated upon the acknowledgement of interdependence so that we, as researchers and practitioners, can wonder with ‘sensitivity to the conditions around which we become with each other’ (580).

5. As Dubnewick et al. (2018) explained, in narrative inquiry, narrative beginnings are the beginning of the self-facing that keep researchers asking who we are in our study to support a process in which we may live in more wakeful ways alongside our participants.

6. Informal and formal research conversations occurred through the 2016 garden season and continued into early 2018.

7. For readers interested in reading Clark and Margaret’s complete narrative accounts please see [Dubnewick (2018)].

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC File No.: 752-2015-1826].

Notes on contributors

Michael Dubnewick

Michael Dubnewick is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University. His work focuses on the experiences of recreation practitioners in urban settings in the areas of culturally relevant programming and social justice, specifically around food-based programs with Indigenous peoples.

Sean Lessard

Sean Lessard is from Montreal Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6 territory. He is currently an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta and former teacher, counselor, and consultant working within both urban and community settings.

D. Jean Clandinin

D. Jean Clandinin is a professor and founding director of the Centre for Research for Teacher Education and Development at the University of Alberta and one of the pioneers of narrative inquiry. A former teacher, counselor, and psychologist, she is the author of numerous books and articles. 

Tara-Leigh McHugh

Tara-Leigh McHugh is a professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta. She leads the University of Alberta’s Certificate in Aboriginal Sport and Recreation that is jointly offered by the Faculties of Native Studies and Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation.