Conference paper
In South Africa, difficult questions are emerging around how the sharing of research communications and findings. In 2014, a group of researchers initiated a project to examine how indigenous peoples articulate the effects of climate change. The multi-institutional group consists of researchers from a non-profit organization called Natural Justice (SA), University of Cape Town (SA), Indiana University (USA), and members of the Indigenous Griqua peoples (SA). In conducting their study, researchers were forced to confront the competing needs to both share and not share their research findings openly.
On the one hand, outside funders required researchers to report their findings through open access publications and creative commons licenses. On the other hand, given histories of settler colonialism and the taking of indigenous peoples’ knowledge, Indigenous Griqua peoples asked researchers to not share all their findings and wanted to give input on publication decisions. In response, researchers developed a series of research contracts signed by all parties to protect the interests of indigenous peoples, while finding ways to promote the open sharing of scholarly findings.
This presentation discusses how researchers sought to navigate these competing interests and how the use of research contracts offers both possibilities and limitations. In doing so, it offers a way of thinking differently about notions of open and collaborative science. In particular, it suggests a more critical approach by embracing what might loosely be called a “situated openness” whereby collaborative research production might involve simultaneous modes of being open, closed, sharing, and restrictive.
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