Abstract
To fully understand how culture and resilience are intertwined, the use of innovative qualitative research methods is imperative, irrespective of a study’s design. However, more important is astute choice and use of innovative methods. Although many authors advocate the use of novel, interactive methods in studies of marginalized youth, they seldom flag the importance of considering the cultural and contextual appropriateness of methodological choices, or how methodological choices advance understandings of the sophistication of pathways to resilience. In this chapter we do not describe these many qualitative approaches. Rather, we aim to sensitize prospective users of inventive methods to think critically about their choices, given the multi-faceted dynamics of youth development and resilience processes, together with the cultural and contextual characteristics of research sites. We achieve this by flagging how complex the research of youth resilience processes is, and how cultural and contextual variation amplifies such complexity. We then consider the limitations of existing discussions of innovative methods, posing new areas for consideration. Thereafter we present two exemplars from the Pathways to Resilience Research project to foreground the criticality of choosing culturally congruent, innovative methodologies.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the International Development Research Centre of Canada for their financial support of the Pathways to Resilience study (in particular in Canada and South Africa, as reported in this chapter).
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Notes
- 1.
Ethical approval was obtained from all collaborating universities and community partners.
- 2.
Youth or researchers documented the timeline, depending on the youth’s preference.
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Liebenberg, L., Theron, L.C. (2015). Innovative Qualitative Explorations of Culture and Resilience. In: Theron, L., Liebenberg, L., Ungar, M. (eds) Youth Resilience and Culture. Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9415-2_15
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