Visiting as a Method in Critical Psychology – Lessons from a Research Project about Urban Inuit Experiencing Homelessness

Introduction: Critical psychology broadly aspires to engage researchers, practitioners, and the field as a whole in understanding and responding to how psy-disciplines are exercised toward oppressive aims and reorienting them toward liberatory ones. However, the specific ways researcher-practitioners can do so without re-imposing limiting dichotomies can be difficult to discern and enact.

The proposed presentation draws on the researchers’ current project, Understanding the Social Worlds of Unhoused Urban Inuit, to describe methods that align with critical psychology theory. Specifically, we outline the organic web of diverse relationships from which the project has grown and “Visiting” as a method of nurturing these foundational relations. As described by Indigenous feminist scholars, “Visiting is a relating imbued with accountability, vulnerability, and mutuality.” Visiting was a necessary opportunity for us to enter street and shelter spaces and be questioned, known, and, if earned, invited into deeper levels of mutual knowing. These encounters have been invaluable to the quality of the work and process.

Methods: Visiting began over three years before this project was conceptualized, first through neighbourly and volunteer roles. As relationships deepened, new roles emerged, namely beading-circle facilitator and collaborator in solidarity projects. This network of connections grounded the project, and interviews (n=32) were conducted in community spaces where prior gatherings and encounters had taken place.

Results: Visiting shaped every stage of the project, from concept to outcomes. Moreover, Visiting deepened our everyday engagement with participants’ lived realities, advancing conversations beyond introductions to their values and felt perceptions. It also sharpened our awareness of the parallel paths we tread—particularly regarding time and quotidian rhythms. This presentation will discuss these and other lessons from practicing Visiting as a research method, its connection to critical psychology, and invite participants to consider how Visiting might be applied across other topics.