Embodying Ethical Space during COVID-19

By Anastasia Papadopoulos, MES Student

October 14, 2020

This blog by Dalhousie University's Masters student Anastasia Papadopoulos provides insight into how she and her partners create and maintain  Ethical Space when conducting community-based research supported by the CRP.

How do we understand our responsibilities to work in Ethical Space when we can’t actually see each other?

As a master’s student and visitor to Mi’kma’ki, I had a huge learning curve going into my Master’s degree. I am a first-generation Canadian born in Waterloo, Ontario which is situated on the Haldimand Tract and Treaty 3 territory. As such, I am a visitor to Mi’kma’ki as I have no history associated with this land other than that which I am developing through this master’s work. I was offered an opportunity through the CRP to work with the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq (CMM) and the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources (UINR) on a project focused on exploring IPCA governance barriers, opportunities, and aspirations in Nova Scotia. This was exciting to me – it was an opportunity to learn what it meant to do community-partnered research, and to learn how to actively engage in Ethical Space. It also offered me a chance to explore my interests and passions for conservation, environmental justice, and build my capacity to engage with and learn about different worldviews.

IPCA Workshop in Membertou on Unama’ki hosted by UINR (February 2020); Photo Credit: UINR

My first meeting with my partners was at the CMM headquarters in Millbrook, Nova Scotia where we worked to formalize the focus of the project. Ethical Space emerged as a central component for our project as guided by the Indigenous Circle of Experts (ICE) report and as part of the ethos of the CRP. This approach was new to me, but it was very useful in building and reconciling my position as a settler embarking on a research partnership with Mi’kmaw partners.

In particular, I find Ethical Space helpful in that it asks us to step into a new space. As a settler and new researcher, it is often easy to fall into rabbit holes of settler guilt and feel trapped in your colonial mindset and historical identity; but Ethical Space offers you the chance to first reflect on your past and present and then make a choice to move forward differently. After finalizing the project objectives, I was invited by partners Trish Nash and Lisa Young from the UINR to a Knowledge Holder’s gathering in Membertou, on Unama’ki. This was my first opportunity to meet many of the individuals working on IPCAs and have the chance to meet my main partner contacts from CMM and UINR.

This was an exciting opportunity and, of course, I was quite anxious and nervous. I was nervous both about my newness to the area – not being overly familiar with the geography on the east coast, and only just beginning to dig deeply into the history and culture of the Mi’kmaq. I was also nervous about what I was expected to know and the new people I would be meeting. Although the nervousness might have been a typical response, I was relieved to discover that it was not necessary since my partners were warm, welcoming, and – after all – invited me into that space. I learned so much at this event – not just in terms of the knowledge that was shared for the workshop objectives, but also about relationships, listening, and community-mindedness. I was looking forward to continuing to make trips out to Unama’ki and to the CMM headquarters as the project progressed.

When COVID-19 emerged as this huge disruption in the world, I was not only distracted by the pandemic in its own right, but I was also worried about how I would continue to work in Ethical Space if I couldn’t even see my partners in person. How could I really do work in partnership with Mi’kmaw organizations and through participation and input from community members if I couldn’t even travel to the organizations and communities I am working with? Is this work even ethical if I must always hold meetings, conduct interviews, and plan for the project solely over the phone or virtually? Am I imposing a method of communication that would not be typical for those I hope to speak with for the project? I had a lot of concerns - as do many researchers in the era of Covid-19.

When I defended my project proposal to my research committee and project partners, I included a continuity plan devised to address the complications that COVID-19 imposed on our project. I was happily surprised that my partners were encouraging, supportive, and still interested in the project despite all that had been happening. My relief was palpable.

Ethical Space is not only something that researchers are supposed to engage with – it is a space that partners, participants, communities, researchers all choose to enter, together. It is a relationship; it is trust; and it is something that you cannot frame as being only your responsibility.

IPCA Workshop in Membertou on Unama’ki hosted by UINR (February 2020); Photo Credit: UINR

Photo Credit: Anastasia Papadoulos

A great lesson for me through this process, as a new researcher, was to understand that my responsibility is not only to be trustworthy in creating this Ethical Space. Ethical Space also charges you with a responsibility to trust. To trust that your partners trust you, that they trust that you are doing your best, that they support you, and view your relationship as reciprocal, two- or multi-sided, and that the space is shared, created, and recreated together.

Ethical Space offered a mechanism for reflecting on the strengths and value of both knowledge systems (that of western science and Mi’kmaq knowledge and worldviews) to guide how we developed and implemented the project objectives. Through the establishment of this conceptual space, I’ve been able to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the knowledge system and lens that I work through and further understand the learning that I can achieve through listening and engaging with those who hold different worldviews. This has further reinforced my understanding of the importance of respecting different ways of knowing not only in the conservation context but in all contexts. Although I have read this over and over again in the various pieces of literature that describe the opportunities that emerge from working in Ethical Space, if not for this opportunity to work with my partners – Lisa, Trish, Allie, and the broader IPCA Team in Nova Scotia – I would not really understand what it meant to embody it, in any context.

I think that our project team has managed to establish an Ethical Space that may look different than what it could’ve been without COVID-19, but we have managed to hold a space where we can continue to uphold the principles that we all view as important for the project. We have integrated adaptability, trouble-shooting, and patience into the project. We have shifted the project to work in the circumstances that we have been presented with, and in doing so, have worked to establish communications in the ways that are available to us. We continue to maintain open communication, check-ins, and have managed to move the project forward in a way that still addresses our objectives despite the COVID-19 complexities imposed on all of us.

Ultimately, although COVID-19 is not something that can be described as “good”, I think it is important to reflect on the good things that have emerged out of it. For myself, understanding what Ethical Space really means was one of those benefits. I continue to feel gratitude for the partners that I work with at CMM and UINR and am excited to continue working on this project in the shared space we have created.