< p e o p l e >

Throughout the period of researcher training and fieldwork from April to August 2002, regular weekly meetings allowed project team members to evaluate and monitor the progress of the project. Data from each week’s work were continuously compiled, and new questions arising were considered.

As well, the Tuesday meetings were the place that difficulties and complications, including criticisms of the project, interpersonal issues, and questions of ethics and accountability were taken up.

“To be perfectly honest, when I left after the focus group, I felt disgusted with the experience. I didn’t feel that these boys really wanted to share information about their problems with housing, health, education, work, subjugation to violence, expressions of sexuality etc. etc. Sure, they did…but did they have a choice? Could we say that they chose to sign up for the focus group? Well, yes, technically they chose to participate…but this is where I have the biggest problem—entrenched in their conditions, I don’t believe they had a choice in participating and for $10.00 they sat their waiting for the focus group to finish. I felt like a trick”.
(Justin, Fieldnote)

“…a lot of the slummy places I stayed at were places outdoors, lobbies, some were underground so I’d do underground parking lots in Kitsilano. Mostly, in Vancouver, down Bute I’d just walk to sunset beach and sleep on a bench.” (P.J.)

“Since I saved up some money while I was working, I bought myself a car, so I’ll most probably find a place for most of my stuff…and sleep in the passenger seat of my car.” (Tony)

	Researcher Training
	Capacity-building of youth themselves was an explicit goal of this project, which was structured so as to provide youth hired for the project with skills-training, work experience, and paid employment as community-based researchers. Trainees worked in teams, pairing community-based youth with experience of street-involvement and/or homelessness, and university-based graduate students, so that community-based youth might develop a better understanding of academic approaches to research and what being a university student might involve or offer them, and university-based youth could better understand something of the resources, skills and knowledge under-supported queer youth use to manage their very different conditions of survival.
	After the initial orientation, and an intensive program of researcher-training (see appendix 7), the fieldwork was begun and trainees developed skills and experience in field-based research, including logistics, team-building techniques, observational approaches, interviewing techniques, documentation and fieldnotes, record-keeping, running team meetings, transcription of interviews, how to set up and facilitate focus groups, and survey design, development and administration .
	During the second month of the project, 6 trainees along with one senior research associate attended a week-long residential course in ethnographic documentary video making at the AMES (Access to Media Education) media center on Galiano Island.
	This intensive program helped to deepen and solidify relations among team members, and offered youth unfettered access to tools, skills, training, and expertise, under ideal learning conditions, with comfortable accommodation, transportation and all meals provided for the duration of the training.

		Working in two smaller teams, the group produced 2 five-minute videos as a vehicle for developing their skills in camera work, scripting, sound editing, directing, and video editing.
	Throughout the period of researcher training and fieldwork from April to August 2002, regular weekly meetings allowed project team members to evaluate and monitor the progress of the project. Data from each week’s work were continuously compiled, and new questions arising were considered. As well, the Tuesday meetings were the place that difficulties and complications, including criticisms of the project, interpersonal issues, and questions of ethics and accountability were taken up.	(Sacha, fieldnotes)
	Learning from the Research Team
	Because more than half of the research team consisted of “experiential” youth, youth who had personal experience of a range of aspects of street life for queer and questioning youth, a great deal was learned about relationships between non-hegemonic sexual identification, and risks of homelessness and street involvement from the members of the research team themselves, who gave their informed consent for this information to be used alongside other study data. As important, then, as any other source of data for this study were the interviews, focus groups, and other activities conducted with research team members. As explained earlier, the team was composed of 10 members plus the Principal Investigator, and all team members identified as “queer or questioning”. Two of the women identified as bisexual, three team members identified as lesbian and one of these had personal experience of transgendered (F-M) identification. One team member identified as transgendered (M-F), and three as gay males. All males were of colour, and the trans youth was First Nations, however all female team members were Caucasian, and this representation is likely significant in itself.
	Team work Conclusions: Learning about community-based research
	From the contributions of members of the research team during training and team-building meetings, the following conclusions related to the implementation of participatory action research involving community-based youth as peer researchers are suggested:
	Researching disadvantaged individuals and groups can cause actual risk and harm to those persons, and this needs to be recognized in the kinds of questions we ask, who we ask and under what conditions, how we compensate participants for their time, and how we interpret the results of our inquiries.
	“Outsiders” to the population being studied are readily recognized by participants. They will not necessarily understand what they are seeing or hearing, and their insufficient understanding may needlessly place informants at risk. Outsider status severely limits access to people and information, so that it is necessary to support and, in most cases, to defer to the judgment of community-based researchers in deciding who to contact and where and when to request information from participants.∑ In many cases, extreme economic need means that informants may participate only for the money or other material perks, in which case it may be better simply to provide the remuneration promised and cut short the interview. It is not ethical to require research participation from people whose only motivation is financial, and whose “consent to participate”, therefore, is actually coerced by economic need, and not in fact “freely” granted.
	“To be perfectly honest, when I left after the focus group, I felt disgusted with the experience. I didn’t feel that these boys really wanted to share information about their problems with housing, health, education, work, subjugation to violence, expressions of sexuality etc. etc. Sure, they did…but did they have a choice? Could we say that they chose to sign up for the focus group? Well, yes, technically they chose to participate…but this is where I have the biggest problem—entrenched in their conditions, I don’t believe they had a choice in participating and for $10.00 they sat their waiting for the focus group to finish. I felt like a trick”. (Justin, Fieldnote)
	The least advantaged members of the research team proved the least able to complete the work of the project. This is not a criticism of these team members, but rather an important consideration when designing research structures which aspire to involve and assist disadvantaged youth. As with any job, having a stable home and supportive living conditions and adequate economic resources is actually a condition, and not merely an outcome, of getting and keeping a job, including a job as community-based peer researcher.
	“…a lot of the slummy places I stayed at were places outdoors, lobbies, some were underground so I’d do underground parking lots in Kitsilano. Mostly, in Vancouver, down Bute I’d just walk to sunset beach and sleep on a bench.” (P.J.)
	“Home” (Boys-R-Us participant)
	“Since I saved up some money while I was working, I bought myself a car, so I’ll most probably find a place for most of my stuff…and sleep in the passenger seat of my car.” (Tony)
	previous section \| top \| next section