The Promises and Conundrums of Decolonized Collaboration

Abstract

This chapter considers the issue of decolonization and suggests two major implications for the decolonization of an anthropological practice premised on collaboration with indigenous actors, scholars and communities. The collaboration between indigenous actors and anthropologists also helped in fostering the process of both formation and visibility of many indigenous intellectuals in different academic and non-academic settings. Different proposals of collaboration and cooperation in research practice and writing emerged from these critiques. Ever since the 1960s collaboration in different academic settings has highlighted its interdisciplinary mode of dialogue and conversation that anthropologists entertain across disciplines with scientists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, cultural studies scholars, students in order to elaborate new perspectives on the fast changing cultural and social landscapes. The collaboration between engaged anthropology and indigenous studies can produce a multi-textual hermeneutics, where the multi-textuality is a way of interpreting and representing the complex and multifaceted aspects of a given situation.