INARELS emerged in response to three challenges and opportunities facing researchers interested in the complex phenomena of language, education, and social change in Africa.
Projects that entail extensive fieldwork often requires researchers to travel, often across countries or continents, and spend extended periods immersed in the research sites. In the absence of significant funding and flexible institutional commitments, researchers are compelled to abandon protentially impactful research ideas. Foreign researchers with significant funding often rely on their local counterparts for the arduous data-collection tasks. By highlighting the disciplinary expertise and cultural rootedness of local research experts, INARELS facilitates equal collaboration that target rigor, efficiency, and maximal impact.
When research is driven primarily by researchers' own scholarly needs, considerations about the practical utility of research findings, especially to the participants and their communities. INARELS recognizes the cultural and indigenous methodological expertise of research participants and their communities, and commits to negotiating with them the entire research process. By building communities of "experts" with individuals who bring unique privilege perspectives and skills to bear on the issues, each research team sharpens the methodological rigor and practical utility of their research enterprise.
Social realities are by nature dynamic; the issues we study continue to evolve after a research project ends, thus limiting the capacity of researchers to understand fluid trends and shifting interlinkings of variables. The networks INARELS bolsters community partners ability to continue to document relevant events in their day-to-day life, thereby providing rich data sources from which future inquiries can benefit immensely. Such community engagement also has major payoff in community's capacity for evidence-based, culturally-responsive decision making long after any research project.