| Abstract: | In the two decades since Alexander Lockhart's seminal article on the insider–outsider dialectic in native socioeconomic development, a great deal of change has occurred in the Canadian North and new challenges have emerged for community‐based participatory research and development. This is particularly the case in the Northwest Territories, where Aboriginal communities are facing for the first time the triple challenges of Aboriginal land claims implementation, Aboriginal self‐government, and a boom in mining and petroleum development. Increasingly, participatory methods in research and community development are being co‐opted to serve state or corporate interests, far from their radical origins in movements for social change. A historical analysis is called for that accounts for the contradictory and contested social contexts in which participatory activities are imbedded. This article suggests that a return to the roots of the participatory method requires the creation of a new autonomous space of resistance. The academic outsider is uniquely positioned to facilitate critical interventions in both community and university contexts. The resulting convergence of critical outsider and insider has great potential in the forging of new knowledge that can contribute to self‐determination beyond the bounds of the state. |
