The term “reciprocity” has increasingly become part of mainstream vocabulary in research spaces (and beyond), especially in conversations around addressing harms, and minimizing extraction. At the same time, I’ve noticed that many people still use “reciprocity” interchangeably with “exchange” — which significantly reduces the concept to that of a simple transaction. And it’s not our fault. Under a capitalist system, we’ve been conditioned to think this way. To do right by someone, is to give back something of equal value.

But reciprocity is actually far more nuanced and relational; it’s not simply about balancing debts or about immediate exchanges. It involves deeper responsibilities and sustained relationships.

In this article, I’d like to highlight some of the assumptions we tend to make about reciprocity in research, and offer a perspective shared by many Indigenous communities and spiritual traditions, that invite us to practice reciprocity as a way of living in relationship.

The assumptions we make

In our modern world, the concept of reciprocity often mirrors the transactional nature of capitalist economies. We tend to view giving and receiving as equal exchanges, bound by time and immediate return.

We often assume that reciprocity should be:

• Direct and individual: a one-to-one exchange. The person who gives is the person who receives. The plant we eat from, is the plant we should water.
• Time-bound: something that needs to be balanced with speed and immediacy.
• Even: an even exchange that often ignores the responsibility which comes with power and privilege, and erases historical context and structural inequities.

These assumptions end up shaping our expectations of self and others. And they impose limitations on our imagination of what reciprocity could be, and what it truly means to be in right relationship.

Reciprocity as movement, not transaction

In the context of research, reciprocity is often reduced to compensation — honoraria for time, reimbursement for participation. And while these may be necessary to survive capitalism, they are not enough — because reciprocity, in its truest form, isn’t just about payment. It’s about responsibility. It’s about what happens after the conversation ends, after the data is collected, after the story is shared in trust. It’s about what we carry forward and how we live in relation to those who’ve gifted their knowledge.

Some questions we might ask ourselves are:

• How do we stand in solidarity with the communities we’ve learned from?
• How do we ensure that what was offered to us benefits more than just ourselves?
• What becomes our responsibility, once we have received?

As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in The Serviceberry:

“If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return. What could I give these plants in return for their generosity? I could return the gift with a direct response, like weeding or bringing water or offering a song of thanks that sends appreciation out on the wind… Or maybe I could take indirect action… speaking at a public hearing on land use, or making art that invites others into the web of reciprocity… We live in a time when every choice matters.”

This quote expands our understanding of reciprocity beyond linear or time-bound exchange. It reminds us that reciprocity can look like art. Like advocacy. Like structural change. Like refusing to see ourselves as separate from the systems and relationships that sustain us.

This shift — from transaction to responsibility — helps us reframe what it means to give, to receive, and to belong in relationship.

When we understand ourselves as part of a web of relations, reciprocity becomes a way of life, not a checklist. It becomes less about immediate repayment, but about how we live in right relation across time, space, and power.

In research, reciprocity could look like:

• Advocacy: Using our power, voice, and influence to advocate for and materially support the needs and dreams of those we have learned from — not just to publish our insights, but to practice them.
• Custodianship: Protecting and caring for the integrity of shared knowledge by ensuring it remains grounded in its context, and not exploited for personal or institutional gain.
• Ongoing Relationship: Relationship doesn’t always mean staying in direct contact. It can live on in how we speak about communities, how we cite and acknowledge them, how we protect their stories, and how we carry those teachings forward.

These forms of reciprocity extend beyond the transactional logic of “you give, I give” and move us into a relational ethic — one that acknowledges histories of extraction, the asymmetry of power, and the enduring nature of responsibility.

Reciprocity in a world of constant change

As esteemed writer, visionary and Afrofuturist, Octavia Butler, teaches us: change is the only constant. Relationships, circumstances, capacity, and resources are always in motion.

What we are able to give in one moment, may not be what we are able to give in another.

What we need today, may not be what we needed yesterday.

Yet, dominant understandings of reciprocity tend to assume a static world — one in which exchanges are predictable, stable, and immediate.

While staying with family on Bribri Indigenous territory, a friend of mine arrived with the intention of being in service to the local community and the land. But shortly after arriving, they were seriously injured — suddenly unable to contribute in the way they had planned. Instead of being able to offer their labor, they found themselves in a position of needing care. In that moment, reciprocity wasn’t about giving as they had intended, but about receiving with humility.

What does reciprocity mean when our capacity to give shifts unexpectedly? What if we are called to receive instead?

Can we release the idea that reciprocity is an obligation to be fulfilled within a static relationship, and instead embrace it as an ongoing movement of care and trust?

Expanding our imagination of reciprocity

If we unshackle reciprocity from capitalist logic, we can begin to imagine it differently.

• What if reciprocity was not about settling a balance but about tending to relationships across time and space?
• What if reciprocity was not limited to direct exchange but understood as a web of care, where what we receive in one place informs how we give in another?
• What if reciprocity was a practice of honoring what we have been given, not just in return to the giver, but in how we show up in the world?

Reciprocity is not a transaction to be fulfilled. It is an orientation of how we move through the world, with care and relational integrity.

The question, then, is not what can I give back? but how will I move differently because of what I have received?

— — —

This reflection is part of the wider work we do at Pause and Effect — where we reimagine research, design, and inquiry as relational, emergent, and rooted in responsibility to all life. As a coach and co-creator within this work, I support individuals and communities seeking to be in deeper relationship with land, self, and one another — especially in times shaped by rupture, grief, and transformation. If this stirred something in you, you’re invited to learn more or reach out at www.pauseandeffect.ca/contact

Teaser image credit: A dew drop hangs from a piece of lichen growing on the trunk of a tree. The image is intended to illustrate a form of reciprocity in nature. Author supplied.