Inter-systemic research and collaboration : ethical and political dimensions and elements of risk among cooperative communities

This chapter explores the concept of cooperative community from the perspective of ethical and political dimensions and elements of risk that can be encountered at the different stages of inter-systemic research and collaboration. The systems at the centre of this exploration are Australian: a regional university where the research team work; the agricultural show community; and the circus community. The approach taken is a more critical analysis that goes beyond the research findings that indicate support for or that create a debate around a particular blueprint for operation within a research team or within a collaborative community. This site of particular interest, therefore, is not so much the intrapersonal space that exists among members of a research team or members of another collaborative group as the juxtaposition of the two.