'Who said this?' Negotiating the ethics and politics of co-authorship in community text-making

Abstract

Over the past decade, while working as an independent research-writer, I sought to embrace the inspirations and challenges of critical methodologies in various community assignments. I developed an approach to community text-making that situates community storytellers as co-researchers and primary authors of their texts. I used this approach to co-author many community narratives-books and case stories-with community elders, leaders and others working for social change and social justice. In 2015, during the community assignment that is the topic of this chapter, I began to rethink the ethics and politics at play in co-authorship. How should I attribute authorship for the prose, poetry and wisdom I crafted from stories generated in narrative inquiry co-research conversations? What do the words with and and represent when included in a list of co-authors? How should I represent my own authorial work? In this chapter, I tell the story of making a beautiful book that I co-authored with six community leaders working in a predominantly Māori and Pasifika community in urban New Zealand. I offer critical insights on different forms of authorial attribution and consider how relationships (between the co-authors and with this community of place) were enriched and challenged as the emerging book became the centre of a developing collaborative conversation.