Continuing on, reading about approaches to conducting research that roots the research agenda within a community, conceived and conducted in concert with community members, for the benefit of the community. This week’s reading is an analytic review of participatory action-research projects, with the author looking to see what can be learned from those bottom-up or grass-roots approaches to inform decolonized research strategies.
I will post here some passages that stood out to me, for further reflection. The first passage is about the term decolonization. The author, Miguel Zavala, discusses the fraught use and wider definition of the term, landing with his own interpretation for this work: “I define ‘decolonization’ as anti-colonial struggle that grows out of grassroots spaces” (p.57).
In the section of the article about decolonizing research within academia (or “Euroversity”), Zavala notes that, “With respect to research methodologies, we have seen the development of approaches that honor the perspectives, voices, and interests of the communities being studied. This kind of research is encapsulated by the transformative, participatory role communities assume when they take ownership of the research process; the ‘objects’ of the study become the ‘subjects’ of the entire research process, thus changing the paradigm of traditional research methodologies” (p.66).
In closing, Zavala comments that, “What is asked for here is for Indigenous and Raza scholars to become students of the formation of grassroots organizations that are generating alternative, collective education and research projects” (p.68).
This article has led me to think about power as part of the research process, who has it, who doesn’t, and how that plays out throughout and entire research agenda. From the development of the research question, to how data is proposed to be gathered, the collection and analysis of data, and who has access to the results and how the results will be used.
Zavala, M. (2013). What do we mean by decolonizing research strategies? Lessons from decolonizing, indigenous research projects in New Zealand and Latin America. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 2(1), 55 – 71.
