Vera John-Steiner, Robert Weber and Michele Minnis (1998) argue that because the term has become so widely used, parameters need to be set to make it useful. They propose the following definition of collaboration:

The principles in a true collaboration represent complementary domains of expertise. As collaborators, they do not only plan, decide, and act jointly, they also think together, combining independent conceptual schemes to create original frameworks. Also, in a true collaboration, there is a commitment to shared resources, power, and talent: no individual's point of view dominates, authority for decisions and action resides in the group, and work products reflect a blending of all participants' contributions. (Minnis, John-Steiner, & Weber, 1994, p. C-2)

Although many people may agree with this definition as an ideal, there are also many examples of the challenges faced by collaborating researchers when attempting to put these ideals into practice. I suggest that these challenges can be understood as being an integral part of the development of relationships with individuals who are immersed in different socio-cultural and political situations. Indeed, when the collaborating partners share similar conditions these challenges do not seem to be as great. Gary Crow, Linda Levine and Nancy Nager (1992), for example, report that they tried to build collaborative relationships within their team of three university professors from different disciplines and between the team and students and advisors. They achieved a greater level of collaboration within the interdisciplinary team of professors than with students or advisors.

Most authors who write about collaborative research refer to similar themes: issues of time, power, flexibility and trust. These themes point at a definition of collaboration as a relational experience. In the next section I describe collaboration as essentially based on relationships and then turn to describe the challenges researchers describe.

Centrality of relationships

Feminist researchers have long focused on relationships as the basis for knowledge generation. They argue that researchers build relationships with participants and with one another when involved in research. These relationships profoundly influence the approach and therefore the results of a research project. Allison Tom and Carol Herbert (2002) point out that relationships between researchers and research participants are central to researchers' claims to knowledge. "Doing good qualitative research these days requires an engagement with both the ethical and the epistemological challenges of deliberately entering into relationships with other people to learn about them" (p. 591).