A Multilayered Critical Reflexivity Approach to Enacting Complex and Relational Accountability in Indigenist Scholarship: An Autoethnography

This cultural-critical autoethnography advances a multilayered critical reflexivity approach that reorients research practice toward complex accountability grounded in Indigenous relationality. Through three autoethnographic vignettes drawn from lived research experiences, the article traces an evolving understanding of research as a relational responsibility rather than a procedural act. Reflexivity emerges as a multilayered relational practice that redistributes authority, resists epistemic extraction, and recognizes knowledge as relationally stewarded rather than individually possessed. Reciprocity becomes the lived expression of relational accountability through which complex accountability is enacted in support of Indigenous self-determination. Grounded in the author’s positioning as a non-Indigenous scholar, the article examines the possibilities and tensions in cross-cultural research relationships. It offers a praxis-oriented framework that demonstrates how multilayered critical reflexivity can support ethically accountable research while honoring Indigenous self-determination.