Sharing and reciprocity of learning to co-construct a doctoral thesis

By Ingrid Lathoud

A recent graduate with a PhD in Social and Public Communication, Ingrid has worked with immigrant and refugee children and families for nearly 10 years. Her research interests revolve around marginalized populations and are rooted in collaborative, intersectional, decolonized and anti-oppressive approaches. She seeks a situated and reflexive position in her professional practice and research, as well as in her personal life. Here is an overview of her research experience.

A few years ago, I completed a master's degree in the study of psychosocial practices at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. A master's degree to reflect on our personal and professional practices, individually and collectively. It gave us the opportunity to turn our experiential and professional knowledge into "scientifically" valid knowledge, that is to say, knowledge constructed according to the rigour imposed by the academic world. I learned the possibility of contributing to scientific knowledge by sharing tacit knowledge, "hidden in professional action" and in the experiential. I also learned the importance of the group for reflective work, for sharing and reciprocity of learning, for building our critical thinking. A few years later, questions rooted in my own experience as an immigrant and as a professional working with immigrants and refugees led me to enroll in a doctoral program.

ADAPTING TO THE ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT

Initially very resistant to this academic environment to which I did not feel I belonged as a practitioner, and with which I was not sure I wanted to identify with or be identified, I was fortunate to be accompanied by a thesis director who was very open to collaborative approaches in research and who emphasized the importance of integrating knowledge from practice into the academic context. I wanted to carry out my doctoral research within my professional environment and it was obvious, from the beginning, that my research would be embodied in a collaborative approach. I wanted my research to take into account the voices of the people accompanied in their journey (immigrant and refugee parents) and the voices of the people who accompany them (practitioners). I have read a lot about participatory, partnership and collaborative approaches in research. Similar terms for approaches with their own specificities.

I chose to use Desgagné’s1 collaborative approach because it allowed me to take into account the interests of the participants without forcing them to participate in every step. Since lack of time is a recurring theme among parents and practitioners in my work environment, I anticipated the difficulty of asking them to be involved in the stages of defining the research problem, analysis and dissemination. However, it was important for the participants to be able to verify, validate or correct what they had said during individual interviews, and to comment on and complete the findings that emerged from these initial meetings during group interviews.

1 Desgagné, S. (2007). Le défi de coproduction de savoir en recherche collaborative. Autour d’une démarche de reconstruction et d’analyse de récits de pratique enseignante. Dans Anadon, M. (dir.) La recherche participative. Multiples regards (p. 89 121). Presses de l’Université du Québec.

CREATING A COLLECTIVE WORK

At the end of the research project, I gathered all the participants for a final meeting in which I presented the findings of the research, which they could question and comment on, and in which we created a collective work symbolizing the theme of my research, that is, accompaniment in a context of cultural diversity. For example, one participant told me that it is not only the practitioners who find the sharing of traumatic experiences by a woman in a group difficult. The other women in the group are also affected and do not have the resources to deal with the emotional impact of hearing these stories. This was a blind spot in my research that I was able to integrate into my thesis thanks to this female participant. We were thus co-constructing the results of the research.

Throughout my doctorate, the numerous readings, but also the peers I met and the conferences I attended allowed me to educate myself on the feminist2, intersectional3 and anti-oppressive4 , movements, on the research with Indigenous people5, regarding decolonial6 and critical7 approaches. These are movements and approaches that have largely contributed to the construction of my position as a practitioner and researcher, or at least

I was fortunate to be accompanied by a thesis director who was very open to collaborative approaches in research and who emphasized the importance of integrating knowledge from practice into the academic context.

to theorize a position towards which I was tending and to allow me to situate myself in non-neutral research currents8. If it were too late to change my research methodology, I could at least adjust the angle from which I analyzed my data and wrote my thesis.

A NEW AWARENESS

Working with immigrant and refugee families and understanding the issues they faced in their migratory journey made me aware of the colonial and patriarchal system in which we live. This challenged the very way in which scientific knowledge is constructed. Decolonial approaches reconciled the researcher/practitioner that I was and who initially resisted the academic environment. Critical approaches provided me with new perspectives to consider in my professional practice as well as in my research. It is therefore on the basis of these approaches, but also by allowing the meaning of the data collected from the people participating in my research to emerge, that the knowledge of immigrant parents and the people accompanying them has taken its place in my research. In analyzing the findings, many elements cited by the parents and the people accompanying them relied on each other's knowledge. They became essential to my project to explain the building of the support relationship between the parents and the practitioners.

2 Bourassa-Dansereau, C. (2019). L’intervention interculturelle féministe : intervenir en conciliant les enjeux interculturels et de genre. Dans La psychologie interculturelle en pratiques (Mardaga, p. 251 263). 3 Marchand, I., Corbeil, C., Boulebsol, C. et Fédération des maisons d’hébergement pour femmes. (2020). Feminist intervention in the era of intersectionality. https://interventionfeministe.com/en/ Hill Collins, P. (2016). La pensée féministe noire. Les éditions du remue-ménage. 4 Tremblay-Marcotte, Y. et Mehreen, R. (2020). Accompagner la formation en travail social Quelques ressources pour soutenir la lutte au racisme. (C. Chesnay & L. Rachédi, dir.). École de travail Social de l’UQAM. 5 Basile, S. et Robertson, F. (2012). Lignes directrices en matière de recherche avec les femmes autochtones. Femmes autochtones du Québec. 6 Coenga Oliveira, D. (2019). Épistémologies du Sud, pensées et féminismes décoloniaux latinoaméricains. Revue Possibles, 43(2), 61 73. Grosfoguel, R. et Cohen, J. (2012). Un dialogue décolonial sur les savoirs critiques entre Frantz Fanon et Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Mouvements, (4), 42 53. 7 Montgomery, C. et Agbobli, C. (2017). Mobilités internationales et intervention interculturelle : conceptualisations et approches. Dans Mobilités internationales et intervention interculturelle: Théories, expériences et pratiques (p. 29 50). Presses de l’Université du Québec. Halualani, R. T. et Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Critical intercultural communication studies. At a crossroads. Dans T. K. Nakayama et R. T. Halualani (dir.), The handboof of critical intercultural communication (p. 1 19). Wiley-Blackwell. 8 Brière, L., Lieutenant-Gosselin, M. et Piron, F. (dir.). (2019). Et si la recherche scientifique ne pouvait pas être neutre? Sciences et Bien Commun. http://corpus.ulaval.ca/jspui/bitstream/20.500.11794/34463/1/Et-si-la-recherche-scientifique-ne-pouvait-pas-être-neutre-FINALE._print.pdf

It is then through all this doctoral journey that the co-construction of knowledge imposed itself to me.

CO-CONSTRUCTING THE SUPPORT RELATIONSHIP

I observed a model of co-construction of the support relationship (Figure 1): a reciprocity, a circularity and a sharing of knowledge between the parents and the practitioners who participated in building the relationship9; a position of equivalence in which the practitioner allows herself or himself to be transformed by the meeting with the parents and accompanies them, that is, works WITH them; a position of humility and a search for equality, through the recognition of the privileges induced by the status of practitioner; the recognition of the oppressive power that creates situations of vulnerability in the families and the recognition of the power of action of the parents by the practitioners. This co-constructed relationship is a relationship in which each person, whether a parent or a practitioner allows herself or himself to be transformed and participates in social change. A relationship in which all of these people co-construct knowledge that is essential to their relationship, essential to the accompaniment of vulnerable situations experienced by families, more or less, early in their process of immigrating to Canada.

It is then through all this doctoral journey that the co-construction of knowledge imposed itself to me as one of the ways to engage in a decolonial, anti-oppressive approach to research, to participate in the paradigm shift of science, towards a more open, accessible and inclusive science. A position and a perspective that I try to embody and transmit in the different professional environments that I meet in order to take part in the necessary change for a more just society.

CONSTRUCTION OF NEW KNOWLEDGE / OF THE ACCOMPANYING RELATIONSHIP IN AN INTERCULTURAL CONTEXT

KNOWLEDGE OF IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE PARENTS; KNOWLEDGE OF THE PEOPLE ACCOMPANYING THEM CIRCULARITY REFLEXIVITY RECIPROCITY

TRANSFORMATION OF SELF/POSITION AND PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL CHANGE Adaptation of complementary and mutual roles Role of the people accompanying them

Role of the parents

Promotes Conditions for the accompanying relationship

Supports Position of equivalence

Participate Act on dimensions MICRO: Empowerment

MACRO: Recognizing oppressive power

Figure 1 - Accompanying Relationship (Lathoud, 2022)

9 The reciprocity was noticed by the reciprocal exchange of knowledge: that is to say that the people accompanying them transmit knowledge to the parents in the support relationship, and the parents also transmit knowledge to the people accompanying them. The circular nature of knowledge appeared in the interviews of the people participating in the research as knowledge that circulates between accompanying persons, between parents, but also between accompanying persons and parents, in the transnational networks of parents and accompanying persons, etc.