Introduction - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 9

Methodology and narrative
Now that I am in the field, everything is fieldwork.
—Paul Rabinow (1977)
The process of going into the “field” to “collect” information to analyze is a curious
business. Whatmore likens data “collection” to squirrels hoarding their acorns for
winter use:
Whether interviewing actors in situ , manipulating the digital population of
census returns, or trawling documentary archives for traces of past lives, data
collection mimics this squirrel-acorn relationship as you scurry about after
nuggets of “evidence” just waiting to be picked up, brought home and feasted
on at a later date.
(Whatmore, 2003, p. 89)
Similarly, Latour (1999) artfully describes the process of collecting immutable objects
and bringing them back to sites of analysis in Pandora's hope , where he emphasizes
the complex space-time of the research event. This physical act of gathering and
storing information has politics surrounding it and is, in itself, not passive. Rose
(2000) maintains, for example, that the archive is a place where information is not
just stored; it is rather where ideas are also shaped . 9 A fter all, “We all know that
field data (or any other kind of data in the human studies for that matter) are not
Dinge an sich 10 b ut are constructs of the process by which we acquire them” (Bellah,
1977, p. xi).
I started this project with the recognition that, in research, pure objectivity and
total immersion are impossibilities. As Massey (2003, p. 75) reflects, “there is no
such thing as total immersion; there will always still be a perspective, some things
will be missed”. Certainly, my positionality, i.e., as a female researcher trained at
the University of British Columbia and Western Washington University, my role
as a faculty member at Northwest Indian College and Michigan Technological
University, and my role as a mother, wife, sister, daughter, and friend, all influence
my dealings with people in the field. For example, my role as a graduate student
studying transboundary environmental issues helped me gain access to meetings
with certain environmental groups who were interested in gaining feedback on
their own organization. Also, my role as faculty member at NWIC introduced me
to several Indigenous leaders who have generously provided comments and insight
into this long-term project. In addition, the many hours of conversations with
students, colleagues, and friends has helped me to see border politics through a
more informed and critical lens.
Throughout my work, I attempt to remain cognizant of the politics of my
position. To help mitigate possible dichotomies inherent in many research projects,
I strive for transparency with all of those that I work with. Part of this certainly
includes ongoing peer-review and community reviews.
I am also very inspired by and informed by Indigenous knowledge and theories
- particularly drawing on the work of Shawn Wilson (2008), Linda Tuiwai Smith