In this context, the imagined collaborators include: “communities of scientists, sometimes Native American scientists, science educators, science policy folks, and Native American community members (1).” The collaboration is first and foremost interdisciplinary. New knowledge is produced, especially challenging disciplinary norms.
The goal of Tallbear’s proposed collaboration is to bring together different voices interested in “resisting, regularing, or reconfiguring scientific research to serve Native American communities.” Instead of “giving back,” or to think of our research as reciprocal, Tallbear wishes to stand with the communities where she conducts research. Sharing goals and desires while being engaged in a critical conversation that produces new knowledge and insight is what Tallbear hopes for in this type of collaboration.
The power structures inherent in forms of knowledge production (thinking especially of colonial practices) is what both structures this form of collaboration, but what this form of collaboration is trying to work against. The structures of academic publishing, engagements, single authorship etc. are all part of the power structure that makes studying with a shift that needs to happen. Not speaking for a community you’re working with, but actually in concert with. This declaration shifts the power dynamics.
