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Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a framework to improve social equity by engaging communities as equal partners in research design, conduct, and knowledge creation. While CBPR has seen increasing application in Arctic regions, its use in Greenland has been limited by logistical, linguistic, and historical challenges, including community fatigue from extractive research practices. This manuscript details a CBPR-informed approach used to conduct an exploratory study on fertility, reproductive health, and climate adaptation in the Kalaallit community of Paamiut. The study aimed to understand the socio-environmental factors influencing fertility decisions amid economic and environmental changes. We report on nine strategies used to conduct equitable health and socio-ecological research in Greenland guided by the principles of CBPR. Using CBPR principles improved trust, participant recruitment, and the creation of community-valued research products in Paamiut. While time and funding limitations constrained full implementation of CBPR best practices, this study highlights the potential of CBPR to improve equity in Greenlandic research. Using CBPR principles to guide community-engaged research in Greenland provides a concrete and actionable way for students or early-career researchers to promote equitable relationships despite resource limitations. The methods described can be applied across other research disciplines to continue building trust and sustainability in international research partnerships in Greenland.
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Community-based Participant-observation (CBPO): A Participatory Method for Ethnographic Research
Community-based participant-observation purposefully combines participant-observation and community-based participatory research. While participant-observation is the core method of ethnography and foundational to cultural anthropology, community-based participatory research initially emerged from health and related applied sciences to align researchers’ and communities’ agendas through focused collaboration. Participant-observation and community-based participatory research have different scholarly origins and norms but are united in centering communities’ understandings on their terms. Combining the strengths of both, we provide a step-by-step explanation of community-based participant-observation, with examples from a study of water insecurity in colonias north of the U.S.–Mexico border. Using community-based participant-observation, researchers can facilitate the co-production of knowledge and community benefit by analyzing high-quality data that inform theory building and basic research.
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- PAR ID:
- 10463859
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Field Methods
- Volume:
- 36
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1525-822X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 80-90
- Size(s):
- p. 80-90
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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