Between insiders and outsiders: When an indigenous researcher conducts studies in her own community

Abstract

This work presents the experiences of an Indigenous researcher carrying out linguistic and ethnographic studies within her own community. A growing number of Indigenous peoples are venturing into documentation, description and promotion of their languages of origin. As a field, linguistic documentation and linguistic description were created by and for members of academic institutions that were historically distant from collaborative work with the speakers of Indigenous languages. The author’s place within the community, and thus the culture, gives her a profound insight into not only local linguistic research, but also its limitations and difficulties. There is a great need for resources and materials that address the complexities of a female native researcher’s experiences in the field. These intricacies concern the paradoxical roles they play, as women, as members of complex intergenerational families, as community members and as members of educational institutions.