Weaving worlds and grounding knowledge: the collective conception of research paradigms in community collaborations

Acknowledging the lands we live on and the rivers we live with, recognizing our place in community with all our relations, we want to address the importance of Indigenous voices in this issue. Through exploring what “Grounding Knowledge in Community” might mean, in this issue we explore knowledge rooted in communities. The articles in this issue are a testament to ways that research and writing can turn from extractive practices towards knowledge generated with/in communities, in ways that change normative power relationships. We believe this issue is timely as projects, alliances and movements dedicated to deeper forms of climate justice (Caffentzis and Federici, 2014; Perkins, 2019) find ways to work to dismantle neo-liberal globalised economics by repurposing local practices and understandings (Montesano Montessori and Lautensach, 2024; Winther, 2017). Listening, learning and respecting Indigenous communities resistance to coloniality is a crucial moment in this work that we make space for in this issue. Research is one medium through which this work can become visible and kinship with other initiatives can be recognised, strengthening these efforts through networks of knowledge enrichment. Thus, in the issue, work rising from the Iñupiat and Nunavummiut peoples inspires work in Aberdeenshire’s Doric speaking communities and Govan’s Clydeside, whilst resonating with stories from Gaza that in turn are recognised as akin to the carrying stream flowing in Sami/Sampi traditions.