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By reading Decolonizing Methodologies I have reflected
on the concept of research from different angles. Ethics is the dominant theme
in the book and plenty of insights are offered in regard to the application of
research methodologies.
Before understanding what academic writing implies, I much
relied on presenting a topic with a one-way approach which would support my
ideas. During the past two years, we have been confronted with an abundant
flows of fake news, mis-information and conspiracy theories which seem to have
something in common, a mono-directional perspective, pushing themselves forward
in order to prevail over other streams.
But what’s the effect of this modality of information
sharing? The impactful resonance of imposing one view only is that it may
significantly influence, or better diminish, the reasoning of those who do not
engage into a thorough analysis and comparison between facts, taking for
granted written words and relying on limited resources. Basically, it’s about
triggering analysis skills or numb them.
How do I filter the data I collect? How do I select data
when collecting it? I had never thought thoroughly about the importance of
being neutral in collecting data, and how difficult it can be as a researcher.
How can we discern our background from the way how we act, or when we research?
Are we biased at priori in collecting data? If so, how can we neutralize the
effect of our choices on people we research on?
Collected data can write an although biased truth, like
history books. For example, looking at history, women were not eligible for
decision-making roles within societal structures, therefore this has implied we
have received a partial knowledge, an exclusive truth.
The word truth is often associated with knowledge and justice,
when it actually has to do with power, accessibility, authorship. Knowing the truth
sets the foundation of our identity, however our identity is shaped through the
construction of the most powerful presence dictating the truth.
Accessing vast amounts of literature through my University
makes me feel a privileged learner, likely to be one of the few receiving
education in a Western World, where the concept of truth has been built over
layers of knowledge hegemony and discriminating practices.
In this sense, I have the hard task of de-colonizing, de-constructing
and re-building this knowledge basing my new learning on several other sources,
new skills of analysis, data comparison, synthesis, neutral knowledge sharing.
This requires an abundant seeking spirit!
Considering the amount of appropriated practices such as
massage, rituals, herbs, traditions, clothes, which originally belonged to
various indigenous people, but been reinvented and institutionalized by the
imperialist mentality owners, it can be observed research methodologies and dissemination
of knowledge can have a much larger catastrophic effect. These methodologies reflect
a total absence of respect towards the occupied inhabitants of other lands.
Thinking of the now popular vegan diet which may propose
fruits and vegetables that are planted in lands where indigenous rights are sacrificed
to the altar of a globalized culture, neglecting the ethical sponsorship of the
original meat-free way of living.
Our way of researching is embedded in a defined
socio-cultural context that enact as a bias towards the subject of the
research. This can be said of research carried out by large scale organizations
or Governments that produce data to which masses would refer to as trusted
sources and build informed knowledge upon.
As a person who has always refused to dig into politics, I
must start to understand more about expressing my political statement by writing,
dancing, acting in society, etc. Do these action imply a political statement
anyway? What does political mean? How does it relate to knowing, information
sharing?
One quote I take away from reading Decolonizing Methodologies is ‘‘Thus the work of the liminal perspective is to reveal the
ways that dominant perspectives distort the realities of the other in an effort
to maintain power relations that continue to disadvantage those who are locked
out of the mainstream.’’ (Gloria Ladson-Billings, cited, p. 204)
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda, Decolonizing Methodologies (2016)
Available online Decolonizing
Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples - Linda Tuhiwai Smith - Google
Books [Accessed June 2021]
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