“Maybe you need to do something about it”: challenges in global environmental change research with and within local communities

Research on issues such as adapting to rapid environmental change should include indigenous and local people in developing more robust and inclusive diagnoses and responses. Various studies indicate that such projects may face challenges. Researchers touch on these in papers where they reflect on their own work, but to a lesser extent in their empirical papers. Based on interviews with, and articles by, a varied sample of 15 researchers who work with local or indigenous peoples around the globe, I identified the challenges they face and how they deal with them. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts revealed eight themes: (1) external pressure, (2) engaging local people, (3) relevance of projects, (4) prior negative experiences, (5) cultural, historical, and geographical differences, (6) language challenges, (7) payment for participation, and (8) diverging epistemic cultures. Respondents’ statements in all themes contain reflections displaying care, consideration, or responsibility for the projects and the local people they involve. This links the challenges with everyday ethics. Analysis of scientific papers written by the respondents showed that they hardly write about the challenges they face, whereby neither local participants nor other readers of these texts are actively informed by and engaged in critical-reflective discussions about the challenges arising during the research and the strategies used to deal with them. The research community has a responsibility to remedy this shortcoming: in their papers, authors should discuss the main challenges faced and develop, describe, and promulgate strategies for dealing with them.