Ethical and methodological foundations of participatory research in the anthropology of Indigenous peoples with an analysis of partnerships between scholars and Evenki organizations

Abstract

The article conceptualizes the ethical and methodological foundations of participatory research in the anthropology of Indigenous peoples based on interactions between scholars and Evenki communities and their organizations, documenting a shift from an objectivist model of ethnography to a regime of intersubjective dialogue and co-production of knowledge. It demonstrates that the legitimation of fieldwork is no longer reducible to formal consent and requires a rethinking of the relationship between knowledge, power, and representation, since the classical role of the researcher as a privileged interpreter reproduces epistemological violence and the alienation of cultural meanings from their bearers. The analytical focus is on divergences between academic and Evenki ontologies: knowledge is understood not as neutral information but as an ethically charged and personalized living substance associated with obligations and risks, including spiritual ones. A comparative analysis of key categories of partnership is developed, revealing a conflict between contractual-legal understandings of collaboration and the logic of gift, reciprocity, reputational obligations, and consensus-based decision-making characteristic of the Evenki ethos; it is shown that bureaucratic temporal regimes of projects and an orientation toward rapid publication outputs structurally contradict the cyclical temporality of traditional culture and the prolonged maturation of trust. Standard ethical protocols oriented toward individual autonomy and anonymization are critically examined, as they may conflict with collective rights to cultural knowledge and with the need to recognize the authorship of narrators. The professional identity of the anthropologist is redefined: instead of a monopoly on interpretation, the role of facilitator and cultural mediator is emphasized, requiring reflexivity, scholarly ignorance, emotional engagement, and responsibility for the social consequences of the text. As a concluding framework, participatoriness is understood as an unending process of translation and negotiation of meanings, within which hybrid institutional forms of exchange zones are possible, ensuring an equitable encounter of epistemologies and the applied relevance of results for the communities themselves.