When undertaking a capstone project, it is crucial that students approach their topics and the communities they may involve in a culturally sensitive manner. Some key steps students can take include conducting thorough background research, community consultation, and respecting cultural protocols.
The first step is to conduct extensive background research on the cultural context relevant to the capstone topic. This involves reviewing academic literature, reports, and consulting with community organizations to understand cultural values, traditions, and any sensitivities. For example, if working with an Indigenous community, students would need to understand the community’s origin stories, connection to land, practices of elder consultation, and cultural intellectual property protocols. Thorough research minimizes the risk of cultural misunderstandings or inadvertent offense.
Community consultation should occur early and regularly throughout the capstone process. Students must ask for guidance from cultural experts, community leaders, and Elders on the design and implementation of the project. Consultation ensures the community’s perspective and interests are centered and that the approach is culturally safe. In consultation, scope and methodologies can be adapted to be more culturally grounded. For project topics involving human participants, ethics clearance may require a formal letter of support from a community representative.
Students also need to respect any cultural protocols around conducting research or community engagement. This may include following practices of introductions, offering tobacco or gifts, requesting permission before photographing people or sacred sites, or conducting interviews only at certain times of year. Cultural advisors can guide on appropriate ways to engage while protecting cultural knowledge and practices. Some communities may not allow any research or publishing of certain culturally sensitive topics without ongoing free, prior, and informed consent.
Language and terminology use is another crucial aspect of cultural respect. Avoiding assimilative or inappropriate terms for people, places, cultural concepts or traditions is important. Seek advice on respectful terminology from cultural experts. When working with communities where the primary language is not one’s own, providing information sheets and consent forms translated into the local language can facilitate fully informed participation.
It is vital that any resulting capstone products, whether written reports, multimedia, or presentations, are respectful in their portrayal and interpretation of cultural knowledge and communities involved. Have cultural advisors review draft materials to ensure they are culturally sensitive without misrepresentation before public dissemination. Some communities may require their traditional knowledge be kept confidential or published only with their permission and involvement. Property rights of cultural artifacts or expressions must also be respected.
Students need to consider how their work may affect communities into the future, after the project concludes. Make any research data, recordings or photos accessible to communities for their archives, not just stored in university databases. Consider how the capstone’s outcomes or recommendations could benefit communities in practical ways. Cultural advisors can provide guidance on giving back to contributing communities to maintain respectful relationships.
By taking a community-centered approach through extensive background research, ongoing consultation, following cultural protocols, prioritizing respectful representation and benefit-sharing, students can ensure their capstone projects are conducted and disseminated in a culturally sensitive manner. Upholding cultural respect should be a priority from project conception through to completion and beyond.
Cultural respect requires ongoing self-reflection, humility and receptiveness to community guidance. Students who make respecting diverse cultural contexts a lens through which they design, implement and share their capstone work can avoid inadvertent harms while creating opportunities for positive relationships and outcomes for all involved.