Foundational principles for intercultural research with Indigenous and rural peoples: Connecting principles to knowledge mobilization

Abstract

Academic researchers are now expected to share their knowledgewidely and to make it useful to knowledge users ? individuals,organizations or communities ? who can apply it to improve relevantpolicies, programs, and practices. For some time, researchershave asked questions about how to create knowledge that is bothrigorous and useful, how to create processes that make suchinformation accessible, and how to facilitate feedback for continuousimprovement . Unidirectional knowledge transfer fromacademic researchers to societal actors, however, has largely failedto inspire change among users, despite the best possible science; continuous contact between knowledge usersand researchers is now considered key to effective knowledgemobilization . Our own research intobiocultural diversity and sustainability has revealed that mobilizationof knowledge relies on its co-production by academic, Indigenous,community, governmental and private actors working in partnershipwith one another .Thisdocument, making use of cases from Canada, Mexico,and South Africa, provides examples of what suchguidelines might look like.