Decolonial research practices
When it comes to thinking about the coloniality of research, ask yourself:
- What is the history of my academic discipline(s)?
- How are my research questions generated? Is there input from target communities?
- Are there any assumptions in my research questions and what other questions could be asked? Have I considered alternative ways of learning, knowing and doing?
- How will I collect my data? How will I work collaboratively and respectfully with research participants and partners and acknowledging their contributions and co-production/authorship throughout the research process?
- Who am I citing in my writing? Have I considered work in other languages, cultures and mediums from non-elite Global North institutions?
- How is my research funded and who ultimately benefits most from this funding?
Questions adapted from PhD researchers associated with Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures.
As Boaventura de Sousa Santos argues, colonists were trained in academic research across the disciplines, making universities foundational sites for colonial and epistemic injustices.
Decoloniality in research is a context-specific endeavour which involves not only actively unlearning and dismantling dominant Euro-American centric ways of thinking and understanding the world, but also rebuilding and re-worlding forms of knowledge-making that exist outside these dominant epistemic norms (Mignolo, 2017).
As Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (building on Linda Tuhiwai Smith's work) argues,
"Hyphenating “research” into “re-search” is very useful because it reveals what is involved, what it really means, and goes beyond the naive view of “research” as an innocent pursuit of knowledge.
It underscores the fact that “re-searching” involves the activity of undressing other people so as to see them naked. It is also a process of reducing some people to the level of micro-organism: putting them under a magnifying glass to peep into their private lives, secrets, taboos, thinking, and their sacred worlds."
Researchers are encouraged to be critical and reflexive throughout the research process and question the standpoints and power relations from and through which their work is produced, mediated and accessed. Decolonial research practice reminds scholars that many assumptions about knowledge, truth and rationality are drawn from literature and practice developed at a particular time and place and through unequal and unjust power and knowledge relations.
- Guide to Challenging Colonial practices in researchThis guide was written by a group of PhD researchers at the University of Sheffield (see About Us). While we are affiliated to the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the time of writing, our views do not necessarily represent those of the Grantham Centre. We wrote this guide to facilitate the critical evaluation of conducting PhD research and help other PhD researchers navigate the difficulties of doing a PhD while challenging colonial practices, as we found such a guide lacking when trying to learn about these issues ourselves. In particular, we focus on research that will often be conducted by sustainability researchers.
Indigenous Research Methodologies by ISBN: 9781483333472Publication Date: 2019-11-26This second edition situates research in a larger, historical, cultural and global context, addressing the increasing emphasis in the classroom and in the field on sensitizing researchers and students to diverse perspectives--especially those of women, minority groups, former colonized societies, indigenous people, historically oppressed communities, and people with disabilities. Chapters cover the history of research methods, ethical conduct, colonial and postcolonial epistemologies, relational epistemologies, emergent and indigenous methodologies, Afrocentric research, feminist research, narrative frameworks, interviewing, and participatory methods. Additional information on indigenous quantitative research reflects new developments in the field. New activities and web resources offer more depth and new ways for students to extend their knowledge. This textbook includes features such as key points, learning objectives, student exercises, chapter summaries, and suggested readings, making it an ideal textbook for graduate-level courses.
Decolonizing Methodologies by ISBN: 9781848139503Publication Date: 2012-05-10'A landmark in the process of decolonizing imperial Western knowledge.' Walter Mignolo, Duke University To the colonized, the term 'research' is conflated with European colonialism; the ways in which academic research has been implicated in the throes of imperialism remains a painful memory. This essential volume explores intersections of imperialism and research - specifically, the ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and tradition as 'regimes of truth.' Concepts such as 'discovery' and 'claiming' are discussed and an argument presented that the decolonization of research methods will help to reclaim control over indigenous ways of knowing and being. Now in its eagerly awaited second edition, this bestselling book has been substantially revised, with new case-studies and examples and important additions on new indigenous literature, the role of research in indigenous struggles for social justice, which brings this essential volume urgently up-to-date.
Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research by ISBN: 9781000392531Publication Date: 2021-04-18In an effort to challenge the ways in which colonial power relations and Eurocentric knowledges are reproduced in participatory research, this book explores whether and how it is possible to use arts-based methods for creating more horizontal and democratic research practices. In discussing both the transformative potential and limitations of arts-based methods, the book asks: What can arts-based methods contribute to decolonising participatory research and its processes and practices? The book takes part in ongoing debates related to the need to decolonise research, and investigates practical contributions of arts-based methods in the practice-led research domain. Further, it discusses the role of artistic research in depth, locating it in a decolonising context. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, design, fine arts, service design, social sciences and development studies.
Recovering Black Storytelling in Qualitative Research by ISBN: 9781003159285Publication Date: 2021-11-18This research-based book foregrounds Black narrative traditions and honors alternative methods of data collection, analysis, and representation. Toliver presents a semi-fictionalized narrative in an alternative science fiction setting, refusing white-centric qualitative methods and honoring the ways of the griots who were the scholars of their African nations. By utilizing Black storytelling, Afrofuturism, and womanism as an onto-epistemological tool, this book asks readers to elevate Black imaginations, uplift Black dreams, and consider how Afrofuturity is qualitative futurity. By centering Black girls, the book considers the ethical responsibility of researchers to focus upon the words of our participants, not only as a means to better understand our historic and current world, but to better situate inquiry for what the future world and future research could look like. Ultimately, this book decenters traditional, white-centered qualitative methods and utilizes Afrofuturism as an onto-epistemological tool and ethical premise. It asks researchers to consider how we move forward in data collection, data analysis, and data representation by centering how Black girls reclaim and recover the past, counter negative and elevate positive realities that exist in the present, and create new possibilities for the future. The semi-fictionalized narrative of the book highlights the intricate methodological and theoretical work that undergirds the story. It will be an important text for both new and seasoned researchers interested in social justice. Informed and anti-racist researchers will find Endarkened storywork a useful tool for educational, cultural, and social critiques now and in the future.
Catalogues, classifications and codes
Library collections are organised using metadata including subject headings. Subject headings are a set of controlled terms set by the Library of Congress (other controlled vocabularies exist) that appear on many records on Library Search. They are usually a useful tool for finding specific items or determining the scale of a particular subject in a collection.
These classification systems and subject headings reflect the male, white, western, Christian, heterosexual and non-disabled orientations of their originators, as well as the time and place in which they were constructed. As a result, groups of peoples and ideas that fall outside of what is represented by these classifications are ‘othered’ and marginalized. In terms of library services, this can negatively impact the ability of students and researchers to successfully retrieve information on these topics. On a larger scale, biased classification systems and subject headings reinforce dominant hierarchies of knowledge.
The University of Sussex Library is engaged in a continual effort to practice critical cataloguing which is part of a broader effort in librarianship to make the catalogue and the terms we use within it more inclusive. The work involves removing or amending terms from the Library of Congress Subject Headings that we consider offensive or inappropriate and changing cutter numbers in the classification scheme that are codes for similar outdated or undesirable terms. This work will not decolonise the catalogue or classification schemes, but it is important to change the things we do have the means to change, however small they are.
Researchers can incorporate this approach into their own practice by critically examining the codes and classifications used in secondary research data, and by taking active steps to avoid the replication of exclusionary descriptions in created datasets.
University of Sussex Library predominately uses the Library of Congress classification system for its collections. Below is a fascinating documentary called Change the Subject (2019), about a group of Dartmouth students in the US who challenged anti-immigrant language in the Library of Congress subject headings.
The publishing ecosystem
The academic publishing industry is dominated by companies and presses in the global North. The history of academic publishing has its roots in Europe, and while the infrastructure has dramatically changed over time there are undoubtedly systemic inequalities ingrained in the industry. Academic publishers profit from the distribution of knowledge and make decisions about which research to publish, effectively validating some types of knowledge and marginalising others.
Authors from Global South institutions are underrepresented in a great many ‘high profile’ and internationally recognised outlets. This creates a situation that reinforces hierarchies of knowledge, language, research topics and methodologies. The role of academic publishing is rarely at the forefront of decolonial discussion and debate, but it has an impact directly on research careers.
The Open Access movement aims to reduce publication costs, to speed up the dissemination of research, to ensure the visibility of research and, crucially, to remove barriers to access research. The project is broadly supported by researchers and libraries; however, critics observe that some models of Open Access, specifically the pay-to-publish or Gold models, actively reinforce or create new inequalities.
Researchers can make active choices about where to publish. Consider where work will be disseminated or promoted and how accessible it will be. The Library's Open Access team can help researchers identify publication options.
Citations as a measure of value
Publication metrics can be used to 'measure' the impact of a researcher or their outputs. Some institutions have used them in recruitment, probation, promotion or other processes. They also form part of the calculations used in university rankings. By their nature, research performance metrics can replicate and reinforce inequalities within academic institutions and academic publishing infrastructures. A number of widely used publication metrics rely on citation data, however critical race scholars have demonstrated that inequality is reproduced by racially biased citation patterns. Citation is political.
Metrics cannot provide a complete picture of the impact, or potential impact, of a researcher or their outputs. Quantitative methods alone cannot do justice to the richness of research culture. There is growing consensus that researchers and institutions should use metrics responsibly. The University of Sussex is a signatory to The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) which sets out principles for assessing and evaluating research quality in a responsible way.
Initiatives like DORA can contribute to a shift in research culture but research assessment methods remain contentious. Institutions can critically examine the use of metrics and hold metric tool developers accountable for their products.
Databases and Open Access Online Resources
Discover Diverse Databases: knowledge from the global majority
This collection of databases includes resources we subscribe to as well as open access ones that cover literature and data from diverse global voices. Research has shown that dominant databases such as Scopus and Web of Science have a Global North and English language bias, so this collection is designed to encourage you to look for information from more marginalised sources to re-centre knowledge from the Global Majority. With thanks to Sally Dalton from University of Leeds Library for crowdsourcing many of recommendations in this collection. If you have suggestions of databases to include, please contact library.training@sussex.ac.uk
- Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) This link opens in a new windowHistorizes and visualizes Black women’s radical political activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora in efforts to build academic, political, and community engagement, dialogue, knowledge production, research, and education about Black women’s significant legacies as socio-political agents of radical change. By housing a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders, the BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organizing, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora that has often been ignored and may not be taught in academia or public spaces. The Database is free for educational use.