Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Background: Local knowledge sharing practices are often threatened and undermined by totalizing scientific knowledge paradigms. Self-determination, ethical space and integration are important concepts proposed to address these challenges of imbalance, circulating amid discourses on knowledge translation in Indigenous health contexts. The success of applying these concepts in sharing practices, especially in urban areas, has produced mixed results. Moreover, literature does not reflect demographic and technological shifts. The use of computer-mediated communications has led to the re-assignment of cultural and technical meanings to the production and sharing of knowledge. Method: A Knowledge Exchange Network was developed with university researchers and an youth collective to share findings from a participatory network analysis. The analysis explored a Winnipeg-based Indigenous youth movement's engagement in framing processes related to violence. Besides academic knowledge products, producing a movement-relevant multimedia product was prioritized. The process to produce these products was reflexively analyzed to investigate the empirical organization and mobilization of scientific/local knowledges with activists, organizers, academics, artists and funders. Findings: Using the movement concept of frankensteining to analyze the spatial coordination, distribution and inclusion of knowledges into the production of various knowledge products, six key elements were assembled during production: 1) expert-roles, 2) representations, 3) materials, 4) realities, 5) truths, 6) rules. When elements aligned between the movement and university networks in particular configurations, they produced products considering interferences generated by deadlines, trust, authorship, audience, tradition, and voice. Conclusion: The study provides an empirical case on the knowledge production and dissemination practices of urban Indigenous youth involved in research with health researchers.