Research objectives and questionsThe main objective of this research is to describe and better understand how university-based and non university-based researchers work together in collaborative research endeavours. In much the same way that cartographers need to visit the land to be able to draw accurate maps, I think there is a need to hear from those involved in collaborative research to understand the "topography" of collaborative relationships. One of the contributions of this research is to provide a rich description of the collaborative relationships that researchers build and the issues that surface when they work together. In that sense, this research serves two purposes. First, it provides insight into the richness of collaborative approaches to research, showing the different ways of thinking about collaboration and the variety of relationships researchers establish when working with other researchers. Second, by describing the variety of relationships, it offers a starting point for other researchers to understand and reflect on the multiple aspects that influence collaboration and therefore the options they have when engaging in research with others. Ultimately, this research explores the notion that the collaboration a researcher establishes is in itself a choice that carries benefits as well as drawbacks. Further, this research suggests that collaborative research has the potential to generate knowledge in ways that are different from traditional research models. This can happen only if collaborating researchers participate in the collaborative projects with a willingness to explore their own social location and their relative privileges and how these influence the knowledge that is generated in the project. Specifically, I posed the following research questions:
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