Dear Colleagues, what is your take on a situation where visitor researcher(s) come, do research with the locals, collect data, write up the manuscript and publish without involving the native(s) as co-authors? What does it reflect and how best can we avoid such a situation?
A lot of it depends on the level of the contribution. When you say "do research with the locals," what exactly that entailed? What was your contribution to the project? If for example, the local researcher translated a survey, that usually does not account for enough of a contribution to merit co-authorship. However, if the local researcher helped interpret the results because they understand the local context and were able to support their interpretation with academic resources, that definitely merits co-authorship.
In the future, if you engage in a collaborative research project, you should discuss up-front your contribution to the project, co-authorship and (just as important) the order of names on potential output (academic papers, conference presentations, industry reports, etc).
If you feel that you have contributed substantially to the project and if you have some documentation to that effect, you can file a grievance. It most likely will not get your name on the (already) published paper but it may prevent the visitor from repeating his behavior elsewhere and may help others in understanding the ethical tenets of academic research.
Good luck.
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