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

The paper addresses how to responsibly include indigenous and local people and their knowledge in research on complex societal and environmental challenges (e.g., climate change adaptation). Prior literature highlights persistent problems such as helicopter/parachute research, extractive practices, imposition of Western methods and English-language dominance, limited relevance to local priorities, and inadequate communication back to communities. The author argues that these challenges are intertwined with everyday ethics and require ethical reflexivity beyond formal principles, emphasizing relational responsibilities, situational choices, and representation. The study seeks to make the often tacit, practice-based challenges visible and to encourage transparency in reporting. Research questions: What challenges do researchers who work with local and indigenous peoples face? How do they deal with these challenges? How are these challenges (or others) discussed in their articles?

The introduction surveys work documenting challenges in research with indigenous/local communities: distrust due to prior negative experiences and extractive practices; lack of co-production and equal partnership; imposition of Western epistemologies and methods; English-language hegemony in publishing and keywords; and poor communication of results in accessible languages. It brings in frameworks from ethics of care and everyday ethics that stress relational responsibility and context-specific ethical decision-making, and calls for ethical reflexivity throughout projects. Two reviews of ethical challenges in CBPR (Wilson et al., 2018; Kwan & Walsh, 2018) are noted, with the caveat that their search terms may miss relevant work not labeled as ethics. The literature collectively suggests that ethical issues pervade all stages of community-engaged research and that transparency about challenges and responses is rare in publications.

Design and setting: Part of the SeMPER-Arctic international project focusing on research reflexivity in climate/environment-related work with local communities. Sampling and participants: Fifteen practicing researchers with varied disciplinary backgrounds and experience working with local/indigenous peoples in multiple countries (e.g., Philippines, Mexico, Siberia/Russia, Greenland, Norway, Canada, Germany, Greece, Colombia, Vietnam, Mongolia, Bangladesh, France, New Zealand). Snowball sampling from the consortium network; 47 contacted, 15 agreed. Anonymity assured. Data collection: Semi-structured Zoom interviews (average ~60 minutes; range 25–90), 14 in English and 1 in Norwegian, guided by 26 questions covering preparation, engagement, relevance, language and interpreters, participation, analysis, and dissemination across all project stages. Interviews were transcribed by AmberScript. Each interviewee identified a related published article; one article per interviewee was selected for analysis. Data analysis: Inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) using NVivo 12. Coding identified patterns related to challenges and strategies; codes were aggregated into themes based on recurrence across interviews. Eight thematic areas were derived. Post hoc, these were related to concepts from everyday ethics (responsibility, situational choices and actions, relationships, epistemological dilemmas, choices on the fly). A close reading of the 15 associated articles examined whether challenges and handling were disclosed and how they aligned with interview accounts. Ethics: Conducted under SeMPER-Arctic DMP approvals; Utrecht University Ethics and Privacy Quick Scan and Science-Geo ERB approval obtained. Informed consent from all participants.

Eight thematic areas of challenges emerged, alongside strategies researchers reported: 1) External pressure: Ten interviewees raised pressures from funding deadlines, deliverables, and publication expectations, leading to pressure to recruit, involve locals, and produce outputs. Limited funding/timeframes hinder long-term collaboration. Some mitigate by avoiding short, fly-in projects and by involving local partners as co-authors or reviewers of drafts. 2) Engaging local people: Difficulties recruiting participants, especially at a distance; cultural differences in communication norms; reluctance to engage. Solutions include in-person relationship-building, tailoring communication, adapting projects to each community, and using art/local artists to facilitate dialogue. 3) Relevance of projects: Mismatch between funder/researcher agendas and local priorities; local skepticism about the relevance of science; heterogeneity within communities undermines assumptions of uniform interests. Solutions: involve locals from the outset, co-define questions, redesign to align with local issues, and ensure inclusive representation. 4) Negative experiences from prior projects: Widespread accounts of extractive, short-term research causing distrust and fears of recolonization; recognition that researchers benefit more (careers, salaries). Solutions: collaborative/co-productive/transdisciplinary approaches, visible acknowledgement (including co-authorship), leaving locally created products with communities, amplifying local voices. 5) Cultural, historical, and geographical differences: Power hierarchies (gender/age), insufficient cultural competence causing misinterpretation, over-familiarity blunting curiosity, overgeneralizing across indigenous groups, and lack of awareness of national ethnic politics. Solutions: proactively include women/youth, learn enough about context/history, allow open-ended conversations to learn culture, live in/with the community when feasible, and include culturally knowledgeable researchers. 6) Language challenges: Interpreter-mediated loss, filtering, poor proficiency, and disrupted conversational flow; terminological mismatches across languages. Solutions: use local field assistants/colleagues fluent in local language and culture; consider non-verbal/art-based communication. 7) Payment for participation: Non-payment can reduce participation; payment can introduce new complications (e.g., additional remuneration demands, withdrawal of data). Solutions: pay fair, context-appropriate honoraria where customary; compensate time; or provide materials/host workshops to avoid financial burden. 8) Diverging epistemic cultures: Risk of misinterpreting local knowledge via Western frameworks; resistance within Western academia to indigenous theories/references; non-Western colleagues feel excluded. Solutions: decolonize knowledge practices, foster dialogue between knowledge systems, and include non-Western/indigenous researchers as partners and co-authors. Article analysis: Many corresponding publications rarely discuss these challenges. Of 15 articles, six did not mention challenges; three (including two methodological and one reflective piece) discussed them explicitly; the rest alluded to strategies without naming challenges. Some articles documented handling of relevance, language, culture, engagement, and payment; few openly reflected on pressures or epistemic divergence. Overall, a clear gap exists between lived challenges and their reporting in publications.

The findings directly address the research questions by identifying a consistent set of eight challenge themes experienced by researchers working with local and indigenous communities, detailing context-sensitive strategies they employ, and revealing a substantial reporting gap in their publications. The challenges are inherently ethical—relational, situated, and tied to responsibilities toward participants and communities—aligning with the concept of everyday ethics and the call for ethical reflexivity. Despite thoughtful practitioner reflexivity, journal conventions and project pressures appear to suppress explicit discussion of challenges and handling in published outputs. This omission limits collective learning, reduces transparency for local participants, and risks perpetuating extractive or culturally incongruent practices. The study underscores the importance of co-defining research agendas with communities, investing in cultural and linguistic competencies, addressing epistemic hierarchies by engaging indigenous theories and scholars, and making processes and dilemmas visible in writing. Without such transparency, misinterpretations of local knowledge may inform policy and interventions, with potential adverse impacts on communities.

This study contributes an empirically grounded typology of eight recurring challenges in environmental/climate research conducted with local and indigenous communities and documents practitioner-derived strategies to address them. It also exposes a persistent lack of transparency in scholarly articles about these challenges and their management. The author argues that the research community has a responsibility to incorporate ethical reflexivity and detailed accounts of challenges and responses into publications to inform both academic peers and participating communities. Future research could broaden samples across disciplines and regions, examine how explicit reporting of challenges affects trust and outcomes, and evaluate the effectiveness of approaches such as co-production, arts-based methods, and inclusion of indigenous epistemologies in improving relevance and equity.

Qualitative study with 15 interviewed researchers and analysis of one related article per interviewee; results may not be generalisable. Potential selection bias from snowball sampling within a specific project network and focus on climate/environment fields. Self-reported experiences and reflexive accounts may be influenced by recall or social desirability. Constraints on article selection (one per researcher) may underrepresent diversity of publication practices.