Research partnerships in planning and architecture in Indigenous contexts: theoretical premises for a necessary evaluation

ABSTRACT

Participative research partnerships are a relevant approach for researchers and professionals in planning and architecture as well as for Indigenous communities developing projects coherent with Indigenous planning practices. Yet, research partnerships generally suffer from a lack of theoretical foundations. This scoping review connects relationality – a founding ontological concept in the Indigenous world – to the importance of relational dynamics in partnership projects. I suggest that the coming together of researchers, professionals, and communities occurs in a partnership space, a space of relationality in Indigenous contexts. Partnership authenticity allows for the evaluation of research partnership processes by integrating their factors of success or failure.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous planning
• relationality
• community-academic partnerships
• research partnerships
• Indigenous research

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my PhD committee Geneviève Vachon, Émilie Pinard and Geneviève Cloutier. Sincere thanks to all the Living in Northern Quebec lab, particularly Samuel Boudreault, Marika Vachon and Hakim Herbane. Additional thanks to Caroline Hervé for her brilliant suggestions, to Michel Moussette for the meticulous work of translation, to Claire Kingston for the revisions, and a special note for my dear intellectual father.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author received financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article from: Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Société et Culture (FRQ-SC), Living in Northern Quebec Research Partnership (SSHRC 2015-2021), Sentinel North PhD Scholarships program (Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Université Laval).