Abstract

This chapter offers deliberations around the facilitation of focus groups in a manner that takes into account Indigenous ways of knowing. Indigenous knowing can be defined as linked to processes of people collectively constructing their understandings by experiencing their social being in relation to others. This chapter explores how the conduct of focus groups can be geared toward taking into account as well as strengthening knowing as a relational activity defined in this way. I suggest that once facilitators of focus groups appreciate this epistemology, they can set up a climate in which people feel part of a research process of relational discussion around issues raised. This requires an effort on the part of facilitators to make explicit the type of orientation to research that is being encouraged via the focus group session to participants. In this chapter, I offer an illustrative example of an attempt to practice such an approach to facilitation in a rural setting in South Africa.