Collaborative or co-labor research is part of a set of modes of research in human and social sciences that are oriented to discuss or review the distance between people who research and people who are researched. It is part of a long tradition of research designs that seek the transformation of the contexts under investigation and that involve, as research agents, both professionals from the academic world and other people. Perhaps the best known are the Action Research and Participatory Action Research designs.

Collaborative research, as we understand it here, is a committed research that results from a deep reflection on a state of affairs and a political-scientific project to change it. Particularly, in our case, it starts from our research results that show that linguistic inequality, although it is part of social, ethnic and gender inequalities, materializes in a particular way and is reproduced in contexts of linguistic socialization in which ideologies about language give meaning to practices of discrimination and domination of one sector of the population over another.

This knowledge about the ways in which linguistic inequality is legitimized, made and reproduced has led to the revision of the epistemological assumptions on which traditional research in the field of language is based. In particular, the distances between those who “report” the data and those who “investigate” them, and between “research practices” and “intervention practices”.

Also, the results of our research have shown the need to put in dialogue the research agenda that arises from the evolution of the disciplines with which we work and the agenda of the people with whom we work. That is to say, unlike traditional research, the concerns that guide the projects do not arise exclusively from the people who research from the academy, but also from those who work with us. The dialogue between these agendas is part of the methodological process that defines this type of research.

Collaborative or co-labor research is also an object of reflection. Authors such as Xochitl Leyva Solano, Joanne Rappaport, Shannon Speed, Araceli Burguete, Carolina Gandulfo and Virginia Unamuno, among others, have contributed elements for a definition of this type of research, particularly in the case of collaborative ethnographies. In general, they agree on a general definition: co-labor research is understood as that work oriented to the production of knowledge (and its transformation) in the hands of teams that integrate people from different collectives working together.  They also agree that it is a type of work that attempts to discuss the hierarchization of epistemologies and ways in which knowledge can be produced that has been validated within the framework of the coloniality of knowing, doing, feeling and thinking.

This search for research work that discusses asymmetry and moves traditional positions is not always comfortable. Rather, it involves tensions, discussions and negotiations. The collective review of objectives, modes of approach, authorship and the distribution of benefits (direct and indirect) of the research are some of the instances where these tensions tend to emerge.

As we have pointed out, research objectives are discussed in order to reach consensus on generally dissimilar agendas. This involves compromising, understanding, articulating, and seeking common ground, which often implies putting aside personal concerns.

The different approaches involve different roles that are not always comfortable. For example, in working with educators, the distinction between the roles of the teacher and the observer can be uncomfortable and problematic, inviting a change of roles that is often positive.

Shared authorship is an important issue from the point of view of collaborative or co-authored research. It involves bringing together people who traditionally do not participate in the production of the academic framework to do so. Writing an article collectively or participating together in a scientific event mobilizes many assumptions and previous experiences, both of those who are part of the academy and those who are not. What are the legitimate ways of writing or saying, and why? But it also involves bringing into play voices that include us as people who are part of diverse collectives. This is not easy, because it challenges the dominant traditions of academic writing that privilege an impersonal subject of enunciation that takes distance from what it investigates.

Finally, co-labor or collaborative research also seeks to review the issue of the benefits of research, both direct and indirect. We thus ask ourselves who benefits from what we do and how the benefits are distributed among the different groups involved. This challenges traditional research whose direct benefits were for those who did the research (through insertion, promotion or consolidation in the academic career, for example), but not necessarily for other people. The same applies to indirect benefits.

In our research, it is of utmost importance to question the traditional distinction between research and intervention. This distinction comes from the empiricist tradition of social research and, as we have pointed out, has been discussed for some time. Discussing this distinction implies questioning the ways of producing knowledge, in our case, the way in which knowledge about language and society is produced; that is, sociolinguistic knowledge. The hypothesis is that working in co-labor allows us to produce more adequate knowledge about the sociolinguistic processes we study. In this sense, the design of collective activities that we carry out together with the people with whom we do research and in which we develop different roles allows us to know better by doing it collectively.

To know more

Gandulfo, C. & Unamuno, V. (2020). Nota metodológica ¿A qué llamamos investigación en colaboración en este libro? En V. Unamuno, C. Gandulfo & H. Andreani (Eds.), Hablar lenguas indígenas hoy: nuevos usos y nuevas formas de transmisión. Experiencias colaborativas en Corrientes, Chaco y Santiago del Estero (pp. 37-47). Biblos.

Rappaport, J. (2018). Rethinking the Meaning of Research in Collaborative Relationships. Collaborative Anthropologies, 9(1-2), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1353/cla.2016.0009 

Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2004). El potencial epistemológico y teórico de la historia oral: de la lógica instrumental a la descolonización de la historia (1987). En Seminario de sociología de la imagen. Una visión desde la historia andina. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Leyva Solano, Xochitl, Araceli Burguete & Shannon Speed (Coords.) (2008). Gobernar (en) la diversidad: experiencias indígenas desde América Latina. Hacia la investigación de co-labor. CIESAS, FLACSO Ecuador & FLACSO Guatemala.

Leyva Solano, Xochitl & Shannon Speed (2008). Hacia la investigación descolonizada: nuestra experiencia de co-labor. En Xochitl Leyva, Araceli Burguete y Shannon Speed (Coords), Gobernar (en) la diversidad: experiencias indígenas desde América Latina. Hacia la investigación de co-labor (pp. 65-107). CIESAS, FLACSO Ecuador & FLACSO Guatemala.