Indigenous People and Research Collaboration: A Journey Across Cultural and Disciplinary Bounds

Abstract

This paper builds on an earlier paper by the authors that looked at the experiences of the authors as researchers in an interdisciplinary team. Expanding on this previous reflection, the researchers consider the concepts of an intercultural team and the role of Indigeniety in their research efforts. This paper looks at the experiences of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers in a social capital framework. In the earlier paper the authors explored research at the disciplinary boundaries. With backgrounds in law, accounting, economics and human resources the ability to make connections and to have fruitful interactions at the borders to produce research outputs was, at the beginning, unknown by the team. Here, the authors explore research at the boundaries of Indigenous and non-Indigenous interactions and how the team members experienced the publication-writing process as a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers on an Indigenous research topic and finding that social capital may be the key for success.