Shijyaa haa research: Reflections on positionality, relationality, and commonality

This paper engages an Indigenous and a non-Indigenous researcher in discussion about collaboration and co-creation between researchers and Indigenous communities that include and prioritise Indigenous knowledge. It places a focus on the preconditions for respectful and goal-oriented research relationships. The paper is structured around ‘small moments’ in research, as a means of analysing the need for commonality and relationality. Indigenous understandings of relationality include connection to place as a living practice with a responsibility to kin. Relationality and commonality focus on friendship, shared visioning and communication across long distances. Through discourse, Dr Charleen Fisher (Gwich’in, Tl’eeyegge Hʉt’aane, Dena’ina) and Dr Nina Doering (German) focus on positionality, relationality, communication and co-creation in a variety of communication landscapes. Long-term critical discussions during the Covid-19 pandemic about ethical research with Indigenous philosophy, epistemology and ontology normalised virtual meetings as a contemporary practice. The paper addresses research in the social and natural sciences and humanities.