Doing participatory qualitative research: development of a shared critical consciousness with racial minority research advisory group members

Partnership and principles of self-determination, equity, and social justice are keys to community-based participatory research that aims to break down barriers between the researchers and researched. Because community partners are valued as equal contributors to the research project, research advisory groups consisted of members of the community researched are essential to this approach. We discuss the challenges that arose in our first meeting with research advisory group members, where discussions of experiences of racism, in sharing the topic of the research, were initiated with youth from a diverse racialized community. We discuss the ‘development of a shared critical consciousness’, one that incorporated both the researcher’s reaction and the research advisory group members’ development (from initial resistance to critical consciousness). This approach respects the richness of the growth process during research, values the contributions of the researchers and the researched, and via the dialogical process captures contribution in a way that does not finalize or determine people.