Decolonising Research Methodologies: Opportunity and Caution Assignment

Assignment Task

Abstract 

Decolonising methodologies attempt to bring together a number of critical, indigenous, liberation, and feminist methodologies to strengthen decolonisation research. Decolonising methodologies have potential, but it is important to be aware of possible limitations. I argue that the manner in which decolonising methodologies is located in the paradigm debate is limiting and prescriptive, lacks clarity of the concepts that it draws on, reproduces problematic representations of the marginalised, overemphasises how much choice researchers have in choosing decolonising methodologies, and does not address the systemic barriers to decolonisation scholarship. Recommendations for how to strengthen decolonising methodologies are presented.

Introduction

Decolonising methodologies bring together, among others, indigenous, transformative, liberation, feminist, and critical methodologies to strengthen decolonising research. Spurred on by Linda Smith’s (1999) seminal book by the same title, a number of innovative and creative research methods have gained traction, including photovoice, autoethnography, visual methods, storytelling, and participatory approaches to strengthen decolonisation scholarship. The literature is vast with a plethora of articles (e.g., Brannelly, 2016), books (e.g., Chilisa, 2011; Smith, 1999), special issues (e.g., Adams, Dobles, Gómez, Kurtiş, & Molina, 2015; Fredericks & Adams, 2011), a handbook (Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008), and symposia that have attempted to collate knowledge on decolonising methodologies and/or reflect on the relationship between research methodology and decolonisation.

In this article I pose five critiques of ‘decolonising methodologies’. I argue that while decolonising research methodologies are useful and necessary in the current political moment, there is a danger that the movement simplifies the relationship between ‘research methodologies’ and ‘decolonisation’. Importantly, if not properly interrogated, the decolonising methodologies movement may inadvertently reinforce the systems that it critiques. Some of the critiques that I present are old but important, given the current attention on research methodologies in decolonisation writings. I write in the spirit that if decolonising methodologies are to meaningfully contribute to decolonising knowledge production, the movement has to be aware of potential blind spots.

Decolonising methodologies brings together a number of theoretical and paradigmatic strands, some of which would be uncomfortable being lumped together (Kurtiş & Adams, 2015). The disparate strands also make it difficult to pin down a definition of decolonising methodologies. However, questions about the novelty of decolonising methodologies or a definition is less important to me, than how those methodologies function in the current decolonisation turn. I take the view that methodologies mobilising under a ‘paradigm’ (e.g., qualitative methodologies under constructivism in the early 1990s), in this case decolonisation, serve an important political function to legitimise their presence and strengthen scholarship. Paradigmatic partnerships are complex, prone to simplification, and sometimes fleeting, but are important as political movements to strengthen a cause.

Central to decolonising methodologies is a discontent with knowledge production rooted in the global North (Zavala, 2013). The movement attempts to disrupt the universal ideas about the human condition and gives voice to those who have been historically overlooked or deliberately marginalised. It also provides a space and language for researchers from marginalised groups who have often been positioned as ‘outsiders-within’ the academy (Zavala, 2013). It raises questions about who we focus our research on, the types of questions that are asked, the relationship between researchers and participants, the values underpinning research, what can be inferred from the study, and the contributions to equality and justice. Decolonising methodologies also focus on the research enterprise itself, its pedagogies, systems, exclusions and power that privilege certain knowledges over others.

Drawing on decolonisation methodologies can be useful to decolonisation research in South African psychology, as we see in this special issue and elsewhere (see, for example, Carolissen et al., 2017; Segalo, Manoff, & Fine, 2015; Sonn, Stevens, & Duncan, 2013). However, we should not assume that certain methodologies are de facto more likely to contribute to decolonisation than others. For example, it is often suggested that participatory action research can contribute more to decolonisation research than quantitative cross-sectional surveys, or that quantitative methodologies are conservative and that qualitative methodologies are politically woke. There are, of course, instances when this may be true. However, quantitative research can be useful in social justice research (Cokely & Awad, 2013). Similarly, the majority of qualitative and/or mixed methods studies do not contribute to decolonisation scholarship. In cannot be true, therefore, that a methodology separated from its overarching paradigm is necessary or sufficient for decolonisation research.

Thus, decolonising methodologies, like other methodologies, are not as straightforward as is sometimes represented in the literature. It is important, therefore, to interrogate the assumptions of decolonising methodologies, if anything, to make the movement more impactful. If we do not do this, we run the risk of perpetuating a system of knowledge production that is at best powerless, and at worst continues to produce limited knowledge under a new guise. What follows are five critiques of decolonising methodologies. 

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