My ability to survive as an activist sociologist at UW-La Crosse has not been without its costs, however. I spend an enormous amount of time and energy keeping in touch with a grassroots movement and providing assistance where my expertise is most needed. It is a second career in addition to my academic career. At one point I had hoped to combine this with a family and kids, but not anymore. I don't see how I could find the time to do a good job in all these areas (p13).

Not all authors describe an incompatibility between university practices and their community work. Sandra Krajewski (1999) describes how her work doing research for communities helped her publish and achieve full professorship. She explains that this was possible because she was working within the Department of Women's Studies, rather than a program of Women's Studies. This status allowed her work to be judged by her peers in the department using Women's Studies values which focus on commitment to community needs.

While recognizing the shortcoming of the academic structures, some authors (Smith, 1999; Stoeker, 1997) have also also recognized that some spaces are opening up in the academy.

Significant spaces have been opened up within the academy and within some disciplines to talk more creatively about research with particular groups and communities - women, the economically oppressed, ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples (Smith, 1999, p. 9).

Ultimately, the academy is the result of what those working in it produce. The fact that most of the authors referred to in this review are located in the academy is testament to the different forces at play in academic circles and provides a sense of hope of changes to come.

Fostering dialogue among standpoints

I started this chapter with a description of how collaboration has been constructed in the literature with an emphasis on relationships built on trust, respect and flexibility. I then acknowledged that these descriptions can be hard to put into practice. I went on to suggest that collaboration can become a space where different standpoints can develop, and looked at how researchers have described academic demands as being at odds with collaborative research practices. Throughout the chapter, I pointed out that there are certain conditions that are required for collaboration to become a space where critical reflection and political engagement foster the development of knowledge. In this last section I discuss conditions that can foster collaborative research. I examine what researchers report is a need for a critical understanding of research.