1. Consider who benefits from your research, or how your research may be used

2. Respect and/or make space for non-dominant ways of thinking, seeing, and understanding the world

3. If appropriate, amplify the voices and perspectives of marginalised/minoritised peoples

4. Seek reciprocity and equitable relationships in your research (between yourself and other researchers or between yourself and your research subjects) (Gram-Hanssen et al., 2021)

(Especially when working with human research participants)

1. Understand where you are researching and with whom. Some communities have developed research protocols for outsiders that should be respected, for example, the Nunavut in the Arctic (Gearheard and Shirley, 2006). See also the Bawaka collective for collaborative ways of working with Indigenous researchers 

2. Before starting fieldwork, in particular when going to other countries and/or communities where you are not local (even if you are from the same nation-state), be informed and respect their cultural practices, knowledges, and languages. Understand the historical context in which you are working.

3. Where projects are focused on impact, consider transformative processes that focus on the community’s empowerment and enable them to help themselves, recognising their agency and autonomy. 

4. Consider co-designing and co-producing research questions, methods, and knowledges. An example of such an approach is Participatory Action Research (see Action Research Peers Group here at the University of Sheffield; this 17-min video by Scottish Graduate School of Social Science on Co-production and Participatory Research; and Tsekleves et al. (2020) for potential challenges in co-designing research across Global North-South) 

1. Acknowledge field assistants, technicians, translators, or anyone who has helped in your work. Where appropriate, offer co-authorship to those who have contributed in a substantial way. 

2. Ideally, seek ways to include local assistants substantially throughout the research process, such that they are positioned to be co-authors from the beginning, rather than as an after-thought.

3. Encourage your supervisors to facilitate opportunities for local assistants to further their careers (if that is what the local assistants hope to do), e.g. via exchange trips.

4. Produce output that would be most useful/relevant/appropriate for the community being researched. This could be in the form of policy papers for NGOs, or verbal/video presentations for the communities.

1. Develop an awareness of your positionality, how your identity has enabled you to be a PhD researcher, and how it influences your worldviews (see Maclean et al. (2021) for how positionality is central in co-production of knowledge and supporting Indigenous-led research)

2. Consider having a positionality statement, in your thesis or publications (it is common to have a chapter on positionality in geography/critical social science theses)

Examples of positionality statements in papers:
“We recognise that our status as European nationals based at research universities provides us with a platform which is not as readily available to others; it is for this reason that we chose to use this invited review to highlight the unequal accessibility of biogeographical research. We came to explore this area through recognition of how our own research practices were in need of critical evaluation and improvement. We have previously co-authored a paper on the need to decolonise field ecology (Baker et al. 2019), which contains a related set of arguments but with recommendations tailored to improving interactions between ecologists and locals in the field. M.P.E. is an ecologist whose studies in forests around the world have relied upon a large number of field assistants whose  insights and efforts have not been adequately reflected in his publications to date. K.B. is a geographer by training, conducting aquatic field research in Negara Brunei Darussalam during her PhD. She now works with water engineers helping lead the engagement aspects on various EU funded international projects. Reflections on issues around the legacies of colonial relations were triggered after realising that the literature being produced by social scientists, environmental historians, and cultural geographers on the topic of decolonising research was not being engaged with by certain other disciplines. M.G is a human geographer whose work focuses on the ethics of fieldwork in the Global South. He is a British citizen whose work in India and Palestine recognises and interrogates the colonial histories that are detectable in contemporary political struggles in both states.” (Eichhorn et al., 2020)

“As non-Indigenous climate change and sustainability researchers with European and settler backgrounds (from Denmark, Canada, and Germany) who work in Indigenous contexts and from a feminist standpoint, we recognize the acute need for critical reflexivity of ourselves as researchers. A concurrent task is to be aware of how productions of reflexivity of non-Indigenous researchers can unintentionally overemphasize white voices in dialogues about decolonization. We wish to engage the role of non-Indigenous researchers reflexively and productively; our aim is to open dialogue about what transformation as decolonization may look like in a research context as a way to generate change in our own communities. While we believe it is necessary to embrace equity and care in all of our interactions, we especially recognize the importance of decolonial efforts from non-Indigenous people for society to successfully adapt to climate change in a way that centers equitable relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We recognize that decolonizing ourselves and our research practices is a journey without a final destination. Rather than a conclusive academic document, we wish for these words to express our commitment to embarking on this journey, hoping for comments and reflections from Indigenous and non-Indigenous folks alike.” (Gram-Hanssen et al., 2021) 

Example of a positionality section in a natural sciences thesis:

"Section 1.6 My positionality

Although it is not typical for a natural sciences thesis to contain a section on positionality, given the nature of my research on Indigenous peoples’ issues, I felt it was critical for inclusion. Positionality refers to various intersecting dimensions of one’s identity (e.g. ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, gender) that affects the opportunities and privileges that one has and contributes to the shaping of one’s worldviews (cosmology), ways of understanding the world and reality (ontology), and understanding the nature of knowledge (epistemology) (Holmes, 2020; Moon & Blackman, 2014). They have bearing on the values that we hold as individuals, shaped by the society that we were brought up in, and on the relationships that we have with others. Our positionality also has implications for the way research is done, as they affect what research questions one may consider worth exploring, the methods or methodologies employed in answering those questions, and the outputs generated from the research (Meinherz et al., 2020; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012).

This section thus answers the call for more conservationists to be reflexive (thinking that allows researchers to recognise the effect that researchers have on their research; Brittain et al., 2020) and consider our positionality in research (Archer et al., 2022; Boyce et al., 2022; Moon et al., 2019). This involves reflecting on the assumptions that we as researchers hold given our training in the dominant system of knowledge production and the normative values we hold as part of our society, and acknowledging the power imbalances between the researcher and the researched. However, since my thesis did not entail fieldwork nor research partners beyond my supervisors, my positionality, as a woman who appears to be of East Asian ethnicity, has had little influence on the relationships that I have had with others over the course of this research. 

Nonetheless, I recognise that as a PhD researcher in a British university, a privileged site of knowledge production, I hold certain privileges and power, particularly in the potential to shape discourses and policy. This privilege includes access to data, computing power, and the knowledge and training to use them. Further, having been educated in mainstream sciences and belonging to dominant political economies, my knowledge is typically accepted as truth, assumed to be right, and not challenged. By contrast, Indigenous peoples’ knowledges and worldviews are often invisibilised and not recognised as valuable (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). As such, over the course of the PhD, I have tried to read, learn, and understand Indigenous peoples’ perspectives on conservation. My thesis thus attempts to highlight efforts by Indigenous peoples and support their efforts in gaining greater public recognition for their contributions and rights to their autonomy, self-determinations, and lands, as a way of using my privilege without harming communities less privileged than I." (Sze, 2023, PhD thesis)

Example of a positionality statement during a presentation for natural science-focused conference:

"Before I get into the details of my research, I would like to explicitly address my positionality, or how my academic and personal upbringing affect my work. I come to this work as an American citizen with socio-economic privilege and training in Western science and conservation, which contains a long history settler-colonialism, racism, and preservationist ideals. I am still learning how to truly be accountable to the communities where my data are collected from as well as how to speak truth to power in the academic fields I belong to. I am being intentional about stating my positionality, not because I think I am uniquely able to do this or that my project in Indonesia uniquely requires it, but to draw attention to the fact that all science is done within a social context, regardless of if this is acknowledged." (Shen, an environmental DNA scientist/marine socio-ecologist)