Relational Accountability as a Conflict Resolution Framework for Rebuilding Trust in Indigenous Research Partnerships

Conflict is an inevitable part of research, even when research emphasizes collaboration, reciprocity, participatory, and a community-based approach. For community-based Indigenous research, this is compounded with the enduring influence of colonial research paradigms and historical harms. Addressing conflict in research, especially within Indigenous partnerships is essential for meaningful collaboration. This paper presents Relational Accountability as a methodological framework for addressing conflict and harm that may occur in community-based participatory research. It emphasizes rebuilding trust and restoring relationships within Indigenous research partnerships by reframing research as a practice grounded in the ethics of relationality and contextual understandings. This framework further calls for research relationships to extend beyond standard ethical approval and tokenistic consultation, and urges researchers to uphold principles of respect, reciprocity and responsibility throughout the research in response to conflict and harm. We present the context of our experiences within a research partnership where harm occurred, and we apply the Relational Accountability framework to guide our process in relation to collective work and Indigenous research partnerships, Indigenous and institutional ethics, Indigenous self-determination, and addressing the harm.