Researching the Self

Introduction

In 2008–2009, as part of my Women and Gender Studies degree requirements, I took a course called “Seminar in Feminist Research Methods.” I was skeptical and nervous going into the class for a number of reasons. Firstly, and without really knowing why, I felt as though interviews and surveys were indicative of a form of anthropological research that I did not, or felt I could not, identify with. I simply could not wrap my head around how I could use quantitative data to support or define an argument I would be making. This did not feel like the research that I wanted to do. Secondly, I thought about what kind of research I was going to do. Or, at least, what kind of research I was going to pretend to do for the sake of completing the course work. The intent of the course was to prepare us for thesis work either at the graduate or at the undergraduate level; neither of which I was certain I would be doing. My concern was that, since I often felt out of place as a feminist, I had no idea what kind of women-focused research I was going to do. I am a straight woman who never felt compelled by queer theory, which is not at all meant to dismiss the discipline or its theorists as unimportant. Simply, I did not feel connected to that approach. I was not interested in researching or writing about women in the workforce, women as mothers, women in sport, women in politics, etc. I went into my research methods class with a weight on my shoulders, not knowing how I was going to come out of that class alive. Or, more importantly, how I was going to maintain my grade point average (GPA) and not let this compulsory course bring down the marks I had worked so hard to achieve. What I did not know at that time was that this research methods course would completely change the way that I did and understood ethics, research, and my own writing.

In one of our first classes we were asked to make a list of issues that we were interested in, and so, we brainstormed on what we might want to focus on for our research. I was thankful that another student asked, “Does our research topic have to be women focused?” I was not brave enough to ask this. What would my feminist “sisters” think about me, not wanting to research women? Our professor explained that feminist research is not necessarily about the topic as much as it is about the way in which the research is done. At last, I felt that I was cleared to pick a topic that worked for me. I wanted to research Aboriginal issues. My plans were quite vague to begin with but I began narrowing down the scope of the topic.

I had just finished reading a piece in the news about the deplorable living conditions many Aboriginal people on reserves across Manitoba were living in. I was aghast that people were living in Canada in what seemed like third world conditions; without proper food, housing, running water, and without proper ways of disposing of raw sewage. And many of these same communities were suffering greatly from illness and disease, such as diabetes and tuberculosis. This, I thought, was what I wanted to do research on. I had a cousin who was living on a reserve with his common-law wife and children and so I thought maybe I could talk to him. I was unsure of what specifically I wanted him to tell me. But nonetheless I wrote up my research topic proposal. I got it back with a big question mark: “Is this research ethical?” And there it was, the woman who had for years been taking Women and Gender Studies classes was being called unethical. For me, it was as if I had been branded with the scarlet letter.

I had to take a step back and think about the research proposal I had just got back. What was the intent of this research? What did I hope it would accomplish? What benefit would this research have for the community I was researching? All these questions weighed heavily on me and I could not come up with a justifiable answer. Like many sensationalist journalists my only intent was to “expose” these deplorable conditions. I had no means of using this research for any positive development; I alone could do little to make effective changes in the participants’ lives. What I was doing was pointing out the conditions and asking for their buy-in that they were living in third-world like conditions. What purpose would this research have? All I could answer was, absolutely none. I wanted to help. I wanted to make this better, but this menial little research project would do no good in helping the much larger social and political problem.

In the end I knew that I wanted to write about Aboriginal issues in some form. I asked myself what it was that drew me to this topic area. In addition, there is the fact that for most of my university career I was taking classes in and focusing my research on Aboriginal spirituality and identity. I felt a connection to the Aboriginal community. My grandmother was a Métis woman, who for years denied any Aboriginal heritage. I was always interested in and felt connected to this part of my family. For what reason I cannot really explain. Following paternalistic European cultural norms we often get our surnames and our cultural identity from our fathers. My last name speaks only to my identity as Ukrainian. And, for most of my life this was how I identified. But as I grew older, and through my academic life, I began to understand that the maternal side of my family spoke to my identity as a woman. I grew up with two mothers; my birth mother and my grandmother. A few years after the death of my grandfather, when I was five, my grandmother moved to the city to live with my family. This allowed my mother to return to work and as a result it was always my grandmother who was there to pick us up after school and had the family meals prepared. From my early childhood until my grandmother’s death only a few years ago, in 2010, I had two mothers.

In university I began reading about Aboriginal mothering and learned that it is the extended family, made up of sisters, grandmothers, aunts, great aunts, and friends that raise a child. It was not simply the birth mother’s responsibility. My situation growing up made sense to me when I started understanding it through this lens. The influence of both my birth mother and my grandmother, in a number of ways, contributed to my identity. D. Memee Lavell-Harvard and Jeannette Corbiere Lavell bring together a collection of views on Aboriginal mothering in which they state that “[w]hile it may be hard to adequately categorize what ‘Aboriginal Mothering’ actually is, even the smallest child amongst us quickly comes to realize what it is not” (2006: 2). These ways of mothering challenge the dominant patriarchal culture and are “a sign of strength and…resistance” (Lavell-Harvard and Corbiere Lavell 2006: 3). Because of these close connections to members of my maternal family, I felt connected to my Métis identity. I began to understand Aboriginal identity as all encompassing. Being Métis was not identifying with a specific belief or scripture, it was something that was practiced and that was engrained in the hearts of my maternal family. This identity was imbued with shame but also with resilience.

Andrea Smith writes: “Native spiritualities…may die if the people do not practice the ceremonies, even if the people continue to believe in their power” (2005: 122). It is here that I argue that the definition of “ceremony” should extend to include those ritualistic traditions and procedures, such as mothering, that have survived and continue to challenge the dominant culture. While my grandmother’s family long ago made the choice to leave their named identity, language, and many of their cultural practices behind, there are among these traditions some that have survived. This has allowed for the continuation of our family’s Aboriginal traditions, without the stigmatization of the Métis identity. It is therefore these traditions that have connected me spiritually to an Aboriginal identity and have compelled me to write, research, and theorize about Aboriginal issues.

Knowing and understanding these connections led me to the research topic I eventually chose. One of the biggest lessons I learned as a Women and Gender Studies student is that the most compelling research is that which is personally driven and focused. It is easier to write, research, and theorize on a topic in which you have a personal interest. This feeds into the desire to get something from the research. In this sense, the research has a purpose. I kept this in mind, when I redesigned my research project for my Feminist Research Methods course. Through understanding my research subject from my personal social location, I was able to combine this with the connection to my maternal identity as a Métis woman. I decided that I wanted to understand how my experiences growing up as a white middle class Canadian impacted on my current notions of my ancestry. I called my research project “Fiddles and Mukluks: The Impact of Racialized Spaces on the Construction of Métis Identity.” I was interested in exploring how, in terms of space and race, my childhood experiences had impacted on my understanding of my own Métis identity. More specifically, I was interested in looking at the renewed interest, within my own generation, in doing genealogical research. This is because I realized that through this process more and more Canadians have been reclaiming a Métis identity that their families had long abandoned. ¹ A 2009 Statistics Canada publication by Linda Gionet reported that in the 2006 Canadian Census, 389,785 people identified as Métis, and that “this represents nearly a doubling (a 91% growth) in the size of the Métis population since 1996” (20). Gionet compared the growth in First Nations, Inuit, and non-Aboriginal populations and determined that “[h]igher birth rates and a greater tendency to self-identify as Métis on the Census underlie this increase in the Métis population over the past decade” (2006: 20). In addition, Eric Guimond, Don Kerr, and Roderic Beaujot, looked at Aboriginal identity populations between 1986 and 2001 and determined that Métis populations had grown steadily during this period, “from 5.1% to 7.1% per year” (2003: 12). Those such as Linda Gionet (2009), Eric Guimond (1999) and Olive Dickason (2002) have attributed the growing Aboriginal populations not only to fertility rates but to a “growing population of Canadians with Aboriginal ancestry [who] appear to be showing considerable interest and ‘self-identification’ with their cultural traditions and history” (Guimond et al., 2003: 1).

The intent of my research was to look at this growing trend to self-identify as Métis and how my generation understood our upbringings in relation to this identity. I wanted to do this by specifically looking at my own childhood through an auto-ethnographic approach and to support my experiences by interviewing a friend, who I knew grew up in a similar social setting. What this led me to realize was that I, like many others, had relations who had in many cases long ago rejected a Métis or Aboriginal identity. These relatives were not willing to go back to that identification and, in fact, vehemently rejected any Aboriginal heritage. However, I also felt that within my generation and, in some cases, the generation of my parents there has been a growing acceptance of an Aboriginal identity and that the same stigmas were not attached to a Métis identity. This in turn has allowed many of us to reclaim a Métis identity with very few, if any, social repercussions. This is precisely what led me to begin to question the ethical implications in auto-ethnographic research.

My auto-ethnography is my story. However, my story has implications in the lives of others, both alive and dead. I realize that I am telling my story through my personal experiences but this is how I experience the world. In this sense my writing should have no ethical implications in terms of speaking for others. However, my family is involved in my experiences and, therefore, is also involved in my story. I do not speak for them. But I speak about them by telling about the ways in which my interactions with them have impacted on my identity. Carolyn Ellis asks what “our responsibilities to intimate others who are characters in the stories we tell about our lives” are, within auto-ethnographic research (2007: 4). In terms of auto-ethnographic research Ellis outlines three ethical considerations: procedural ethics, ethics in practice, and relational ethics (2007: 4). These ethical considerations are of particular importance to me, with regard to my research, because of the way my auto-ethnography ties into my genealogical research and the ways in which I am essentially “outing” my ancestors in relation to their cultural, racial, and ancestral identity. During a previous conversation with a friend we discussed the social experience of “coming out of the Métis closet.” My reclamation of a Métis identity through my auto-ethnographic and genealogical research is, in essence, claiming and attaching an identity not only to myself but to all of my ancestors.

The scope of my Feminist Research Methods course allowed only for a very superficial examination of the ethical issues in relation to the methodologies that we chose, and therefore I was not able to delve deeply into the ethical implications or considerations necessary of auto-ethnography. It was instead within the parameters of an Aboriginal research methods course that I began to question how we can ethically tell the stories of our ancestors.

Who Are the Métis?

An understanding of who the Métis people are and how they might be identified is integral to understanding the ethical questions that I am concerned with in this paper and the paper’s location within a scholarship of religious studies. Defining Métis identity is complex because, as John E. Foster explains, “in one circumstance, the term conveys a sense of cultural identity and, in another, a quasi-legal status” (2007: 21). The ethical considerations of genealogical research and the process of auto-ethnography as a research tool, specifically with regards to Métis identity, is best suited within the study of religion because of the complexities surrounding Métis identity whereby race, culture, politics, and spirituality cannot be separated and discussed exclusively one without the other.

As noted on the Métis National Council website, Métis people are recognized as Aboriginal peoples of Canada under section 35 of the Constitutional Act, 1982, which states: “35 (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed. (2) in this Act, the aboriginal peoples of Canada includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada” (see Métis National Council [No Date]). The Métis National Council also acknowledge that the 2003 Supreme Court of Canada case R. v. Powley put forth the framework around which Métis people can claim Aboriginal rights under section 35 of the Constitutional Act, 1982. While the R. v. Powley case was largely centered on hunting rights, it identified important definitional components of Métis identity. The court looked at three indicators of Métis identity under which one could claim rights under section 35: self-identification, ancestral connection, and community acceptance. These three indicators were used to assess whether or not Steve and Roddy Powley had Aboriginal rights as Métis people under section 35. It is based on these indicators that the Métis National Council and local affiliates such as the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) have developed membership definitions and application criteria. The Manitoba Métis Federation and the Métis National Council both define a Métis as “a person who self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal peoples, is of historic Métis Nation ancestry, and is accepted by the Métis Nation” (see Métis National Council [No Date]: 2; and Manitoba Métis Federation [No Date b]). While membership in the MMF, for example, requires that the applicant meet all of the criteria in the definition, Statistics Canada requires only that one self-identifies as Métis to be counted as Métis in surveys and censuses. Therefore, those who identified as Métis during the more recent Canadian Census of Population do not necessarily hold membership with organizations such as the MMF, or are not necessarily recognized legally as such. The issue here is that the way in which Métis peoples are counted is not always in line with the legal recognition requirements that are specified by the Métis registry and membership organizations such as the MMF. As such, statistics like those found in the Census can skirt the issue of legal recognition because self-identification is allowable.

The Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) describes Métis as “people of North American Indian and European ancestry who coalesced into a distinct nation in the late 18th century” (see Manitoba Métis Federation [No Date c]). What is pertinent about the Métis for the purpose of this paper is that, because the Métis are a product of a union between Europeans and Aboriginal peoples, this is a unique cultural identity that they have called their own, yet it cannot be understood as monolithic (Lussier, 1978; Parker, 2011). Additionally, it might be argued that it is because of this cultural identity that the Métis National Council states, as noted above, that a person who identifies as Métis understands themselves to be “distinct from other Aboriginal peoples.” Parker (2011) attributes the beginnings of a distinct and separate Métis identity to the Métis people’s role in the Rupertsland fur trade. She identifies Rupertsland as the first place where the Métis used this mixed identity to “protect their economic and political rights” (Parker, 2011: 94), ² However, because of this unique mixed identity, the Métis were able to identify with whichever culture they felt the need for. The result was a large population identifying as French-Canadian to avoid the stigmatization that was associated with the Métis name, largely influenced by the insurrections of 1870 and 1885 (Lussier, 1978). In R. v. Powley, the courts noted that there has always existed a Métis community in the Sault Ste. Marie area despite the lack of information about the community, and its population being under reported. This was attributed to two factors: the community removing themselves to the peripheries of the town, and those members who chose not to identify as Métis. Again, this is linked to the stigmatization of Métis identity and the Riel rebellions. Although the Métis became a strong force on the political and historical map of Canada, they often have not been remembered for their roles as “traders, freighters, merchants, politicians, cart drivers, and translators” but have instead been remembered for the insurrections of 1870 and 1885 (Lussier, 1978).

While Louis Riel (1844–1885) did not act alone in the North-West Rebellion of 1885, he is the man most commonly associated with these insurrections; at least in terms of the common understanding of the events that surrounded the Rebellion. While many persons have celebrated him as the father of Manitoba, he has also at times been denounced as an anarchist for his role in the North-West Rebellion of 1885. As a result, his name has often been shrouded in controversy. In 1885 Riel was hanged in Regina, Saskatchewan, for his role in the Rebellion, charged with high treason for attempting to fight for Aboriginal rights and contesting the Colonial government’s ambitions in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The 1870 execution of Thomas Scott, a member of the Canadian Party who supported the annexation of Red River to Canada, also factored into Riel’s sentencing. Scott was captured by the Métis and charged with “insubordination and armed revolt,” sentenced to death, and subsequently executed on 4 March 1870 in a move Riel believed would “compel the Canadian government into authentic negotiations” (Reid, 2008: 10). However, Scott’s execution further angered the Canadian government and the result was Riel’s exile. Eventually Riel was arrested and he was sentenced to death for treason in 1885. After this time many persons associated the Métis with Riel, and a certain social stigma was attached to the identity. While today the sentiments are no longer as strong, there are some persons who reject the idea of Riel as a Canadian hero. There was controversy surrounding the naming of the February civic holiday in Manitoba after Riel. There has also been some backlash from politicians after the New Democrats requested that Riel’s conviction be overturned (Fortier, 2010). An Edmonton MP, Peter Goldring, stated, “Riel didn’t father confederation; He fought those who did…To un-hang Louis Riel and to mount a statue for him on Parliament Hill would elevate anarchy and civil disobedience to that of democratic statesmanship” (Fortier, 2010). Indeed, across Canada, and in varying communities, the controversial figure is understood in different ways; in the Prairies he is understood as the father of Manitoba, in Ontario as a villain, and many in Quebec see him as the French person who fought the English.

Because Riel was seen as a Métis man, after the insurrections and his death, the character of the Métis people was also called into question. Those who chose to identify as Métis were given the same social stigma, and often were not afforded the same privileges as those who chose to reject their Métis heritage. Those choosing to identify as Métis were given Métis scripts, a process by which the Government of Canada issued certificates to individuals in order to settle their claim to land. What resulted was that many of these individuals did not receive the land to which they laid claim and were left to live on unused portions of land. These portions of land became known as “road allowances” and were the “lands abutting the sides of a road reserved as public rights-of-way, or lands retained by government agencies for future road construction” (Goulet and Goulet, 2008: 143). This resulted in the Métis being associated with a certain quality of living. Lussier (1978) cites a study that was done in 1958 by Jean Lagasse, which found that being Métis was associated with living under certain conditions, in certain places, and doing certain types of work. These stereotypes of Métis identity included living in poor housing in or close to reserve areas, not adapting to the dominant society, relying on hunting and fishing and performing menial, part-time tasks. Lussier (1978) goes on to suggest that, while a Métis was often identified as “half-blood” – that is “mixed White and Indian blood” – the essence of identity lay within how a person lived. In this sense blood was not as important as the perception of one’s identity. Dominant society accepted and favoured those people who chose to leave behind a Métis way of living, abandoning their Métis identity. Because of the unique cultural identity that is Métis, these individuals and families were able to identify with their European ancestry. Many, my family included, favoured an identity that was formed in one of the Métis cultural unions. This resulted in many persons in Manitoba beginning to identify as French-Canadian, who might otherwise have self-identified as Métis if conditions were more favourable.

Several years ago, in a class called “The Resilience of Aboriginal Women,” I wrote precisely about what I have divulged here: trying to make sense of how my family went from being Cree, to Métis, and to French-Canadian was confusing. I could not understand why my ancestors, or more specifically my grandmother, could not and did not want to be associated with any form of Aboriginal identity. I had grown up in a French immersion school, I knew my grandmother could speak French, albeit not very fluently. I always celebrated the Festival du Voyageur and donned my best Ceinture flèche. My grandma regularly cooked bannock with dinner. My mother and my great-uncle were Manitoba champions in the Red River jig and I took after that same great-uncle and learned to play the fiddle, which was never called the violin in my house. ³ I felt that so much of what I had witnessed and experienced as a child was Métis culture. It was engrained in my family’s identity. But my grandmother was still insistent we were French-Canadian and this identity was wrought in shame.

I had got back one of my reading reports on Rosalyn Ing’s (2006) article “Canada’s Indian Residential Schools and their Impacts on Mothering.” It was in this report that I had divulged much of the same information I have here. The following statement hit home, for me: “[c]oming to terms with one’s identity is a long process if denial was the norm” (Ing, 2006: 163). I was trying to determine how my grandmother came to believe that any association with an Aboriginal identity was shameful. While reviewing my report, I noted that my professor had written: “I’ve learned that shame is very complex and in some respects can be an aspect of resilience,” and I began thinking about how this act of shame and denial could be understood as an act of resilience.

I began thinking about how the women in my family had acted to protect our future. In order to survive and to offer the best possible life they could to their children, they chose to abandon that part of their identity. I cannot begrudge them this, nor can I be angry with them for these choices. I recognize that my privileged position within society would most likely not be as such, if they had chosen a different path. Had they remained strong in their Métis identity they would probably have been forced to live a much different life, one of poverty, social stigma, and most likely either on a reserve, or on a road allowance. It was during this time that the ethical implications of my genealogical research became particularly concerning as I began to understand more clearly the intricate ways that my maternal family had preserved Aboriginal traditions, such as mothering, while abandoning the traditions and language that would have them named.

I started to question how I could reclaim this identity and stay true to my ancestors. How can I honour their choices, while understanding my ancestral lineage as Métis? What ethical implications are there, for both the living and the dead, in my reclaiming this identity? While my genealogy or auto-ethnography have not been made public until now, how can I ensure that I am not claiming an identity for my family members? Most notably for those who have long been deceased but who may not have wanted to have this identity attributed to them? How do I attempt to undo the legacy of shame that has been associated with the denial of my family’s Aboriginal heritage, while also acknowledging that I have in large part not lived a life associated with an Aboriginal worldview? My family chose to acknowledge and celebrate the parts of Métis culture that were considered safe and could for the most part be hidden under the guise of French-Canadian culture. The road that my family took reminded me of the critique I had of Folklorama, an internationally known Winnipeg multicultural festival that has taken place every summer since 1970 (see the festival website, Folklorama [No Date]). We celebrate those parts of the culture that are fun and enjoyable, while ignoring those that are controversial or taboo. And yet beneath all this there remained an aspect of resilience that was wrapped in the concept of shame. In consideration of my Métis identity I had to acknowledge the choices of my ancestors.

Auto-ethnography

“If we have been researched to death…maybe it’s time we started researching ourselves back to life.” (Castellano, 2004: 98)

The last decade or so has marked an increasing change in the ways that research is conducted in Aboriginal communities. Ethics guidelines ⁴ have been created and Aboriginal research paradigms designed so that the communities being researched now have control over what is being researched, who is doing the research, and what research takes place. Communities are now defining and making suggestions as to what research needs to take place. Marlene Brant Castellano writes,

Research acquired a bad name among Aboriginal Peoples because the purposes and the meanings associated with its practice by academics and government agents were usually alien to the people themselves and the outcomes were, as often as not, misguided and harmful. (2004: 98)

At the helm of the misguided and harmful research was anthropological and ethnographical research. LaRocque writes:

Behind the dichotomy of civilization versus savagery is the long-held belief that humankind evolved from the primitive to the most advanced, from the savage to the civilised. With respect to the Americas, there are great similarities between a widely circulated ethnological classification done in 1576 by Spanish Jesuit Jose de Acosta and an anthropological theory published in 1877 by American lawyer-ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan. Both placed Amerindians at the lowest level and Euro-Whites at the highest in their respective constructs. (2010: 39)

There are several critiques of auto-ethnography as a method of postmodern research. As an alternative form of qualitative research, auto-ethnography has been claimed to be self-indulgent and narcissistic (Holt, 2003); and has also been said to exist at the “boundaries of academic research because such accounts do not sit comfortably with traditional criteria used to judge qualitative inquiries” (Holt, 2003: 3). Perhaps this is exactly why auto-ethnography should be understood as an important research format that creates space within academia for indigenous research. This is a way in which Aboriginal scholars can locate themselves in their research that is in line with the value placed on story-telling and oral traditions in Aboriginal cultures and can begin to replace the large body of white settler ethnographic work that has dominated academia.

In a book review of Heewon Chang’s Autoethnography as Method (2008), Leon Anderson writes, “[g]oing by many names, and defined by often conflicting and overlapping models, some precise, some intentionally vague, auto-ethnography offers a confusing, fuzzy set of opportunities for integrating personal experience and social analysis” (2010: 493). With this in mind, Chang’s book makes an attempt to provide a general guide for auto-ethnographic writing. I am not concerned with how to do auto-ethnographic writing but, rather, with the ethical implications of doing this form of research. As noted earlier, Ellis discusses three ethical concerns through which we can begin to examine the ethical implications of auto-ethnography: procedural ethics, ethics in practice, and relational ethics, (2007: 4).

First there are the procedural ethics. These are the procedures that are mandated by committee and review boards and that deal with issues of informed consent, confidentiality, the right to privacy, deception, protecting human subjects from harm, and the ethics that guide research projects whose subject focus involves sub-cultural, cultural, national, ethnic, or religious groups, including Aboriginal groups. The first issue I ran into with procedural ethics and my auto-ethnography was whether or not I would be providing the community with the opportunity to react to my findings before they were presented publicly. This was fairly straightforward for my project in 2008–2009 as this research was not being publicly presented or disseminated outside of the context of the course. However, the question becomes more complicated as this research becomes published. At this point, how the information is provided to the community before it is presented publicly became a fairly complicated question for me. First, I had to figure out who the community was. Writing from an auto-ethnographic standpoint, who do I have to consider in terms of the research, or who would I consider to constitute the community? My self-identification as a Métis person is supported by my Métis citizenship card issued to me by the Manitoba Métis Federation. This card represents a formal acceptance by the Manitoba Métis community. However, my involvement with this community has remained exclusively limited to my status as a citizen. This problem of identifying our community may be commonplace to Métis people like myself, for whom a multiheritage or multiracial background makes it difficult to clearly define or articulate the boundaries of community, tradition, and culture, thereby making auto-ethnography the most suitable to tell our own stories and transfer our own experiences. This type of work not only creates space within academia for indigenous scholarship but begins to touch upon the experiences of mixed race Métis people. Additionally, because the Métis experience is not monolithic, auto-ethnography as a research tool can also represent the starting point of a body of scholarship that addresses the complexities of Métis culture, specifically with regards to genealogical research.

An additional ethical consideration is ensuring that the findings based on the individuals involved are not generalized so that they are misunderstood as speaking for the entire culture or group as a whole. Auto-ethnography is perhaps one of the best methods of qualitative research that can alleviate this ethical consideration. It is important within auto-ethnography that the social, cultural, and political contexts in which one’s story is understood are reflective of the self and not of the whole community. In my ethics checklist I noted that, since the research was self-motivated and would focus generally on my own auto-ethnography, supported by a single interview, the individuals being represented in the research would only be those involved. The intent of bringing in an interview subject to the research was in part to fulfil a methodological requirement but also to further theorize the experiences that I had and the ways in which our Métis identities were created. Writing from the viewpoint of the self was the best way to ensure this was done. My research never attempted to be, nor did it ever claim to be, the experience of the whole Métis community.

The second of Ellis’s (2007) ethical considerations, ethics in practice, is more relevant to auto-ethnography done in conjunction with ethnography or another research method. As Ellis states, it concerns:

ethics in practice, or situational ethics, the kind that deal with the unpredictable, often subtle, yet ethically important moments that come up in the field…For example, what if someone discloses something harmful, asks for help, or voices discomfort with a question or her or his own response? (2007: 4)

While there exists a set of research guidelines to guide one’s research, there is most often an assumption that the research is “being done on strangers with whom we have no prior relationships and plan no future interaction” and as a result, as researchers, we often encounter ethical implications that are not considered within the standard guidelines (Ellis, 2007: 5). I believe this is where a background in feminist research ethics and Aboriginal research methods can combine so as to begin to sort through the ethical method(s) of doing ethnographic research. Both of these methods question the practicality of objective research paradigms and often make cases against the idealized version of the objective research subject. Essentially, both feminist and Aboriginal research methods seek research that urges the necessity to write from the self. Emma LaRoque writes that this necessity to write from the self comes from needing to “remain true to my heritage” but also has a function as a way to seek cultural agency (2010: 29). However, research that is self-reflexive has been often discredited due to its lack of scientific objectivity and has been denigrated as inherently political. LaRocque (2010) quotes Edward Said (1978), who cautions, “No one is helped in understanding this today when the adjective ‘political’ is used as a label to discredit any work for daring to violate the protocol of pretended suprapolitical objectivity” (Said, as cited in Laroque, 2010: 30). My own experience in research at the undergraduate level taught me that my best research came from those assignments that forced me to write from the self. This makes the use of one’s own voice an essential and necessary quality. Auto-ethnography has enabled me to place a greater emphasis on the way in which I interact with the culture that is being researched while connecting “the personal to the cultural, [and] placing the self within a social context” (Holt, 2003: 3). My use of the self within my research, combined with the use of a somewhat unorthodox and often critiqued method, has been my way of ensuring that I can tell more than the story. LaRocque writes, “it is not enough to simply tell the story, it is equally important that we name, locate, and situate the ‘story’” (2010: 33); this holds true for me, as there is so much to my genealogical story that needs to be told.

Writing for the Dead

At the time my initial research was being done, my grandmother was the only person who was alive who was deeply implicated by my research and my revelations. I had the genealogical research to back up my self-identification. Now I was writing and researching about the shame and denial of a Métis identity and how that might fit into my largely white, middle class upbringing. My grandmother warmed to the idea of me doing the genealogical research but I was never brave enough to discuss with her the auto-ethnographic research that I was doing. Towards the end of her life she became more and more willing to acknowledge this identity and, as I dug up information from Census records and archives, she became more willing to hear about and discuss our Aboriginal ancestry. Now that she has passed on, what ethical implications exist?

Carolyn Ellis states that “[p]eople lose some legal rules of privacy when they die, and the dead can’t be libeled because they cannot suffer as a result of damaged reputations” (2007: 14). Yet, writing about the dead raises significant relational ethics. This is Ellis’s (2007) third ethical consideration in auto-ethnographic research. When telling the story of my life, I implicate others involved in it. And many of those experiences that I am divulging were experiences that I was privy too. In research of any form, there is always the consideration that the researched will only give what information they feel the research(er) needs to have or should have. As a result, personal anecdotes and emotions can be left out (there is always the possibility of limiting the information that is given to the researcher). In auto-ethnography, there is never a reluctance to divulge because you are writing about what has already happened. During the time those things happened, you, as the researcher and the researched, experienced that time in an unhindered and unconstrained form. Ellis, speaking to her students about the ethical dilemmas of writing through ethnography, says:

I tell them that writing about people who have died will not solve their ethical dilemmas about what to tell and may make the dilemmas more poignant. I tell them that dead people can’t give them permission, approve what they say, or offer their accounts, that they will feel a tension between their implicit trust provisions with those who have died and telling what is necessary for their own healing, construction of self, and offers of comfort to readers. (2007: 25)

Conclusion

Linda Tuhiwai Smith writes, “For some indigenous students one of the first issues to be confronted is their own identities as indigenous and their connected identities to other indigenous peers” (1999: 136). If I go back to that initial feedback I received from my professor questioning the ethical implications of my research I begin to understand Smith’s statement more clearly. In order to begin to understand or even imagine my role as an Aboriginal researcher, it was essential that I first embark on a journey of telling my story. This journey is not done. For the last several years, I have not felt at ease with my identity and have questioned how I might get to the point where I can be more comfortable with it. Part of understanding my ancestry has been to tell our story; how we got to this place. However, in telling that story, I have had to realize that there will be gaps in the story and it is unlikely I will ever know the circumstances that led to my family abandoning our Aboriginal heritage. Part of this is not only what information I can access and what knowledge I can gain through genealogical research, but it is also the way that, in this process, I have “considered what I needed to tell for myself, while honoring my implicit relational trust provision” (Ellis 2007: 16) with those family members to whom I have spoken and who have since passed on.

What is clear in writing auto-ethnography that is largely focused on genealogical research is that it is hard not to tell the truth. Ellis writes,

I tried to tell a truthful account for readers, while I omitted things, occasionally changed details of a scene, and invented composite characters to protect identities. All of these techniques are commonly used in ethnographic storytelling and memoir. (2007: 16)

Shawn Wilson writes, “rather than the goal of validity and reliability, research from an Indigenous paradigm should aim to be authentic or credible” (2008: 101). Understanding that auto-ethnography requires that we consider issues of consent and how our story implicates others has allowed me to understand my research as being more about myself. And yet, at the same time, for the purpose of presenting it before research ethics review committees my research is understood to be my own story. It therefore represents only my personal understandings of the topic in relation to my cultural, social, and political milieu. This still leaves me to question how I can ensure that the research I am doing through an Aboriginal research paradigm reflects Wilson’s notion of relationality. How do I ensure that the relationships are not separated from the research? If my community is more narrowly defined as my family, then I must ensure that the relationships that I develop with distant family members, both alive and dead, for the purpose of my genealogical history, are acknowledged and breathe life into the research.

Writing about my experiences as a child has allowed me the privileged position of deciding whether or not to claim a Métis identity. Through this process I have often asked myself how my grandmother would respond to such a claim. There are choices that she made in her life. Certainly there are choices that were made in her mother’s life of which I am unaware. Am I putting words in their mouths by writing from my current position? I have often wondered if I have failed to acknowledge the hardships experienced and the choices that were made. Ellis writes, “I felt I had to tell my story to move on in my personal and professional life” (2007: 16); I can certainly understand this statement. Writing through auto-ethnography has allowed me to make sense of my social and cultural surroundings throughout my lifetime, while attempting to come to some form of logical understanding as to why I am and always have been a Métis woman.