Coding Indigenous culture as post-traumatic stress disorder: an ethical dilemma

Abstract

This autoethnography explored an ethical dilemma for an Indigenous investigator involved in a study of adult Indigenous boarding school survivors. As research team members coded post-traumatic stress disorder for an interview, the author was at an ethical crossroads that involved betrayal, stigma, oppression, and within-group diversity. The author deemed that the interview was an expression of culturally sanctioned behavior versus mental illness. The author had been taught not to discuss the cultural experience portrayed in the interview with outsiders based on stigma and oppression within American society. Intersectionality provides the framework to understand this ethical dilemma and provides tools that can assist future Indigenous researchers involved in the study of their own people.