Collaboration as Presence: Being Relational in Research With a Maya Tzotzil Muslim Community in Mexico

• In Event: Relationality and Reflexivity in Cross-Cultural Research

Abstract

This paper explores the ontological and epistemological implications of designing and conducting relational research with Indigenous communities. Guided by Indigenous scholarship, we approach relationality as central to our ways of knowing and being in a collaborative project with a Maya Tzotzil Muslim community in Chiapas, Mexico. We center relationality in all dimensions and stages of this research, from the identification of the investigation’s focus to the design and implementation of the project. We argue that this approach, which we theorize as relational presence, invites deep engagement not only with modes of relationality with the community but with who we are as researchers, and calls attention to slowness as a critical, ethical, and indeed productive aspect of community-centered collaborative research.

Authors

• Ayesha Khurshid, Florida State University

• Melba Marin-Velasquez, Florida State University

• Katherine Murray Yaun, Florida State University

• Lama Ziad Jaber, Florida State University

• Anairis de la Cruz Benito, Florida State University

• Eugenia Flores Millender, Florida State University