Organization Monkey

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.

I’ve started doing a bit of reading about ways of thinking differently about traditional social science research methods, as part of a group activity with the IRDL Scholars. Today I read a piece by Daniel G. Solórzano and Tara J. Yosso, about counter-storytelling as a method to ground research from the perspective of the non-majority voice. I learned some new terminology, which I will post here as a reminder for myself (and perhaps will be useful to you as well!). The “definitions” are my own interpretation based on my reading of the terms in use in the article.

Majoritarian story: story told from the perspective of a person in the cultural majority

Deficiency model: some class of person does not have a key characteristic (a biological trait such as being a person of color, as an example used in the article) to succeed, as judged by the dominant culture

Counter-storytelling has at least 3 forms: personal stories or narratives (using a first-person voice); other people’s stories or narratives (using a third-person voice); composite stories or narratives

They also provide a really clear distinction between a method and a methodology:

According to Sandra Harding (1987), a research method is a technique for gathering evidence such as interviews, focus groups, participant observation, ethnographies, and surveys. On the other hand, research methodology is “a theory and analysis of how research does or should proceed” (p. 3). We define methods as the specific techniques used in the research process, such as data gathering and analysis. Whether we use quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of methods depends on which techniques of data gathering and analysis will best help us answer our research questions. We define methodology as the overarching theoretical approach guiding the research. For us, methodology is the nexus of theory and method in the way praxis is to theory and practice. In other words, methodology is the place where theory and method meet. (Endnote 2, p.38)

Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780040200800103