Visual Narrative and the Internet: Ethical Approaches to Engaging Australian Aboriginal Participants on Their Experiences of Ageing

Aims: The wider accessibility of video equipment and the internet provides new possibilities for involving culturally diverse participants in research. We explore the benefits and challenges of using visual methods to engage remote-dwelling Aboriginal elders about their experiences of ageing in Australia. 

Methods: We interviewed 50 people from throughout Australia, including three Aboriginal elders living on a remote island in the Northern Territory, using DIPEx methods (Alexander & Zeibland, 2006). This involved narrative interviews recorded in a documentary style format on film, thematic analysis, and findings presented via video clips on the www.healthtalkonlineaustralia.org website. This was the first DIPEx project to include the experiences of Australia’s first people in their own language.

Findings: Using these methods had benefits for individuals, communities, and the research project. On an individual level participants’ personal stories were documented, leaving a record for future generations. They could express their personal agendas and have their voices heard via a public internet platform. Video narratives recorded in the Indigenous language provided an ethnographic record in a rapidly changing culture, thus benefitting the community by making the narratives more widely accessible to other speakers of the language. These methods benefitted the research project as they provided more information about participants and their environment. Visual narratives are also a powerful educational tool for healthcare providers and students. Challenges of this approach included additional equipment and technical expertise; gaining community permission; interviewing and translating across languages; and negotiating cultural processes around the use of images after a participant dies. These were mitigated by working closely with Aboriginal researchers from the beginning, and building additional time and funding into the project budget.

Implications: Video and the internet are more engaging for a lay audience than academic writing and provide a more reciprocal way of involving traditionally marginalised people in qualitative research.