Ethical environmental, community, and research engagement in times of crisis: reflections from Cayambe, Ecuador

We use a critical incident from Indigenous educational fieldwork on global environmental shift with Kichwa—Indigenous communities in, Ecuador. A community leader’s question, “Who will replace you?” becomes a point of entry to reflect on the many dimensions of community engagement in interdisciplinary weather systems change research. We examine how guesthood and mink’a (obligatory community work) help reframe the roles and responsibilities of researchers working in remote, rural, and Indigenous territories experiencing environmental disruption. Rather than positioning collaboration as a supplement to scientific inquiry, we consider how community expectations around continuity, care, and accountability challenge extractive research paradigms and promote more durable and reciprocal forms of engagement. By attending to the temporal, structural, and epistemic tensions that shape these collaborations, we argue for an approach to research that is future-oriented, relationally-grounded, and responsive to the realities of people in places where land, weather, and water are inseparable from daily life.