Creating space for negotiating the nature and outcomes of collaborative research projects with Aboriginal communities

• Published in: Études/Inuit/Studies
• Main Author: Lyons, Natasha
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Association Inuksiutiit Katimajiit Inc. 2011
• Subjects: Arctic; Études/Inuit/Studies; Inuvialuit
• Online Access: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1012836ar; https://doi.org/10.7202/1012836ar

This article investigates intellectual property and ethical issues involved in negotiating research processes and outcomes in collaborative projects with Aboriginal communities. A series of ideas are outlined to lay a foundation for thinking about ways to create a conceptual space for open and constructive discussions between research partners. Habermas’s notion of “communicative space” is applied to a partnership between southern-based anthropologists and members of the Inuvialuit community of the Canadian Western Arctic. This partnership is focused on documenting knowledge about a large and comprehensive collection of ancestral ethnographic objects housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and on disseminating this knowledge in meaningful ways to the Inuvialuit, anthropological, and museum communities. This article presents a suite of methods generated by the research group that lay some useful parameters for designing research and fostering trust and investment among partners. It also discusses the dynamics of community-based research practices and, specifically, methods for conceiving, constructing, and sustaining research projects. Cet article examine les questions de propriété intellectuelle et d’éthique impliquées dans la négociation des processus et des résultats de recherches faites en collaboration avec des communautés autochtones. Une série d’idées y sont soulignées pour poser les fondations d’une réflexion sur les manières de créer un espace conceptuel de discussions ouvertes et constructives entre partenaires de recherche. On applique la notion «d’espace communicationnel» d’Habermas à un partenariat entre des anthropologues basés dans le sud et des membres de la communauté inuvialuit de l’Arctique de l’ouest canadien. Ce partenariat se concentre sur la documentation de savoirs au sujet d’une collection exhaustive d’objets ethnographiques ancestraux conservés à la Smithsonian Institution à Washington, D.C., et sur la manière pertinente de diffuser ces savoirs auprès des communautés ...