relational accountability

  • concept from indigenous scholars
  • taking care of “all our relations.”
  • “an individual not fulfilling his or her role as a responsible relation by showing (or indeed feeling) intolerance, hostility, aggres­sion, or disrespect will be served natural justice in order that balance be achieved. Each individual is therefore responsible for his or her own actions, but not in isolation” (Wilson and Wilson, 1998)
  • “We remain powerless until we can use the negative to work through to the positive and offer solutions to our communities.” (Wilson and Wilson, 1998)
  • “Careful attention needs to be given to the way relationships are formed and the process of exchange the researcher enters” (ggg)
  • “Knowledge must be understood in the context of relationships formed to develop a holistic understanding—relationships with people, ancestors, and the environment. Knowledge of a community could be regarded as collective memory (Thomas, 2011), common experiences that have shaped the community in the past.” ()
  • ‘giving the community a right to be understood (Husband, 1996)’
  • “The researcher’s relationship to the community needs to be clear and significant enough to make you a stakeholder to the relationship, and it must be openly acknowledged by members of the community” ()
  • “defining their role as facilitators, co-researchers, and members of the community. In this process, they had to leave aside prior knowledge of research methodologies that were not applicable within the context” ()
  • “Each cultural group has values that underpin its worldview, and the local researchers needed to develop an awareness of their worldview and the impact it had on creating knowledge with the communities during the project process.” ()
  • on the Maori research process - “A critical aspect of the research process has been whakawhanaungatanga: allowing time and space to establish relationships. The dynamics of whanaungatanga are critical in determining participation in research and negotiating access to communities. (Edwards et al., 2005, as cited in Jones et al., 2006, p. 9)”
  • “enabling the communities to seek their own answers” ()
  • “Wilson (2008) writes that an indigenous research paradigm is when “the axiology and methodology are based upon maintaining accountability to these relationships” (p. 71). Mantovani (1984) describes it in a different way: referring to relationships (in general) making a community connected to each other in a web of interrelatedness” - includes negative relations ()

References

Section titled “References”
  • Wilson, S. and Wilson, P., 1998. Relational accountability to all our relations. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 22(2).
  • Henry, R., Tait, C. and UP, S., 2016. Creating ethical research partnerships–relational accountability in action. Engaged scholar journal: Community-engaged research, teaching, and learning, 2(1), pp.183-204.
  • (external links mean this was quoted in another text and i haven’t accessed the original yet)