How can scholars best give back to the communities in which they conduct their research? This critical question arises from a long history of colonial scholarship that exploited study subjects by taking knowledge without giving anything in return. It is a problem faced by all field researchers, even those working in their own communities.

Over the past several decades—and especially since the evolution of feminist methodologies, participatory research, and the postcolonial turn in the 1990s—there have been calls for research to be less exploitative, but also for researchers and for the research itself to give something back. Giving Back: Research and Reciprocity in Indigenous Settings addresses the need for reciprocity in the research process, especially (though not exclusively) in regard to indigenous communities.

The twelve case studies in this volume demonstrate that giving back can happen through the research itself—through the careful framing of questions, co-production of knowledge, and dissemination of results—but also through the day-to-day actions and attitudes of researchers that inevitably occur in the field. It can range from everyday give-and-take to the sharing of research materials to larger and longer-term engagements.

As practitioners of community-based research gain greater awareness of these issues, scholars and institutions need guidance and strategies for ensuring reciprocity in the research process. This volume presents a variety of situations from a wide range of research contexts, discusses what has and hasn’t worked, and explores what issues remain.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Jennifer Carter
Julia Christensen
Claire Colyer
David Crew
Erica A. D’Elia
Maria Fadiman
R.D.K. Herman
Richard Howitt
Stephanie Hull
Gwyneira Isaac 
Chris Jacobson
Meredith Luze
Catrina A. MacKenzie
Lea S. McChesney
Kendra McSweeney
Janice Monk
Roxanne T. Ornelas
Tristan Pearce
Matthew Reeves
Chie Sakakibara
Wendy S. Shaw
Sarah Turner
John R. Welch

"Reciprocity is an exciting book—it forces its readers to rethink some important issues in recent moral philosophy."—Ruth Anna Putnam, Ethics

"By reciprocity Becker understands a complex disposition to make suitable return for the benefit we receive from others, to resist the harm others inflict on us rather than retaliate for it, and to make restitution for the harm we ourselves cause. . . . This is a clearly written book which makes fresh contributions to a number of topics."—A. D. M. Walker, Philosophical Books

In Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus, author Arum Park explores two notoriously difficult ancient Greek poets and seeks to articulate the complex relationship between them. Although Pindar and Aeschylus were contemporaries, previous scholarship has often treated them as representatives of contrasting worldviews. Park’s comparative study offers the alternative perspective of understanding them as complements instead. By examining these poets together through the concepts of reciprocity, truth, and gender, this book establishes a relationship between Pindar and Aeschylus that challenges previous conceptions of their dissimilarity. The book accomplishes three aims: first, it shows that Pindar and Aeschylus frame their poetry using similar principles of reciprocity; second, it demonstrates that each poet depicts truth in a way that is specific to those reciprocity principles; and finally, it illustrates how their depictions of gender are shaped by this intertwining of truth and reciprocity. By demonstrating their complementarity, the book situates Pindar and Aeschylus in the same poetic ecosystem, which has implications for how we understand ancient Greek poetry more broadly: using Pindar and Aeschylus as case studies, the book provides a window into their dynamic and interactive poetic world, a world in which ostensibly dissimilar poets and genres actually have much more in common than we might think.

Trust is essential to economic and social transactions of all kinds, from choosing a marriage partner, to taking a job, and even buying a used car. The benefits to be gained from such transactions originate in the willingness of individuals to take risks by placing trust in others to behave in cooperative and non-exploitative ways. But how do humans decide whether or not to trust someone? Using findings from evolutionary psychology, game theory, and laboratory experiments, Trust and Reciprocity examines the importance of reciprocal relationships in explaining the origins of trust and trustworthy behavior. In Part I, contributor Russell Hardin argues that before one can understand trust one must account for the conditions that make someone trustworthy. Elinor Ostrom discusses evidence that individuals achieve outcomes better than those predicted by models of game theory based on purely selfish motivations. In Part II, the book takes on the biological foundations of trust. Frans de Waal illustrates the deep evolutionary roots of trust and reciprocity with examples from the animal world, such as the way chimpanzees exchange social services like grooming and sharing. Other contributors look at the links between evolution, cognition, and behavior. Kevin McCabe examines how the human mind processes the complex commitments that reciprocal relationships require, summarizing brain imaging experiments that suggest the frontal lobe region is activated when humans try to cooperate with their fellow humans. Acknowledging the importance of game theory as a theoretical model for examining strategic relationships, in Part III the contributors tackle the question of how simple game theoretic models must be extended to explain behavior in situations involving trust and reciprocity. Reviewing a range of experimental studies, Karen Cook and Robin Cooper conclude that trust is dependent on the complex relationships between incentives and individual characteristics, and must be examined in light of the social contexts which promote or erode trust. As an example, Catherine Eckel and Rick Wilson explore how people's cues, such as facial expressions and body language, affect whether others will trust them. The divergent views in this volume are unified by the basic conviction that humans gain through the development of trusting relationships. Trust and Reciprocity advances our understanding of what makes people willing or unwilling to take the risks involved in building such relationships and why. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust