Decolonising Methodologies

Decolonising methodologies are a particular concern of subaltern scholarship. One prominent body of work on decolonising methodologies is found in Kuapapa Maori, also referred to as Indigenous Maori Studies. These focus on the exploration of culturally appropriate research methodologies that deal with problems in Western methodological forms, encountered by indigenous studies. The book Decolonising Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Smith, 1999) is expanded upon by a subsequent documentation of research and projects exploring culturally appropriate methods in practice in Culturally Responsive Methodologies (Berryman, 2013). Although I refer to Smith and Berryman et al.’s

contributions in the following section, this is not intended as a focus on Kaupapa Maori, but rather an exploration of decolonising methodologies and how their principles contribute to and support of my own approaches.

Decolonising Methodologies aims to explore ways to decolonise research methods so as to reclaim indigenous ways of knowing and of being. In this Smith relies on an

understanding of scholarship on Africa and the development of the power deferential founded in knowledge systems. Smith’s argument, however, goes on to emphasise how

‘Western’ research has come to be understood as something beyond the boundaries of just Western science and has come to encompass a construct known as ‘the West’. In framing the construct of the West, Smith refers to Stuart Hall’s The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power (Hall, 1992), stating:

Hall suggests that the concept of the West functions in ways which (1) allow ‘us’ to categorise and classify societies into categories, (2) condense a complex image of other societies through a system of representation, (3) provide a standard model of

comparison, and (4) provide criteria of evaluation against which other societies can be ranked. (Smith, 1999: 42-43)

Smith writes that these are the procedures by which indigenous societies have been coded into Western knowledge and are therefore in this sense part of the construct of The West.

Smith goes on to state that thus far interrogation of these procedures has derived from debates over knowledge within the Western cultural archive that have enabled methods of self-critique. Critical theory is a case in point, Smith states that critical theory comes from:

[…] fundamental questions about knowledge and power […] articulated not just through academic discourse but through social movements such as the civil rights movements, the Anti-Vietnam War movement, the second wave of feminism and widespread student unrest (165).

The West, therefore, is essentially a position against which to pose questions about the relationship between knowledge and power; between lived reality and imposed ideals.

Smith states:

During this period social theory shifted, and in the global arena of scholarship, Marxist theorists challenged the liberal theories if modernisation and development which had determined how the Imperial world dealt with its former colonies. Gunder Frank and others working in the South American and African contexts re-examined ideas of development and suggested that there was a causal relationship between First World economic policies and Third World underdevelopment. (165)

Smith asserts that these methods of self-critique were valuable when used in parts of the world where societies were battling the ways in which they have been encoded into Western knowledge. What emerged led an agenda for actions and an agenda for self-determination.

Indigenous self-determination is central to Smith’s principles of decolonising methodologies, which hold at their core the role of culture as a mediating force. Smith explains that social justice allowed for changes in the social sciences, which subsequently began to tap into cultural resources – not as mere artefacts or primitive expressions, but as significant sites for critical engagement. Following this line of thinking, I believe that

technology in contemporary Africa is most critically and successfully interrogated through cultural resources.

In what she terms an “agenda for actions”, Smith identifies four major foci: 1) survival, 2) recovery, 3) development and 4) self-determination (116). For Smith these four are the goal of decolonising methodologies, she writes:

It is not sequential development – the survival of peoples as physical beings, of languages, of social and spiritual practices, of social relations, and of the arts are all subject to the same basic prioritising. Similarly, the recovery of territories, of

indigenous rights, and histories are also subject to prioritising and to recognition that indigenous cultures have changed inexorably. (116)

The latter recovery and the “recognition that indigenous cultures have changed inexorably”, is of particular concern in my own research, where agendas for self-determination are explored alongside the development of new technologies. Within contemporary technology cultures there is a tendency to overly romanticise the contributions of traditional culture, rather than see them as an alternative knowledge repository. All four are at play in

contemporary engagements with technology in Africa: the recovery of knowledge systems and repositories; the survival of cultural forms in a globalised information economy; the support and development of African perspectives and critical engagements; and the value of self-determination in all of the above.

Smith uses the following diagram (Figure 3) to identify how the goals of decolonising methodologies are different from those in Western research methodologies. She identifies new methods in the keywords: “healing, decolonisation, transformation and mobilisation”

(117). Western methodological frameworks prefer the criteria identified by Hall, namely:

categorisation, representation, comparison and evaluation. These, Smith states, are understood to be non-constructive, debilitating and at times dehumanising in their approaches (108).

Figure 3: “The Indigenous Research Agenda”. Source: Decolonising Methodologies (117) (Smith 1999).

Decolonising methodologies offer a framework for thinking about the intentionality of research and thereby how this intentionality can be shifted to better server indigenous self-determination. The decolonising methodologies in this research will reveal themselves as I begin to unpack the processes and outcomes of fieldwork and the development of Post African Futures.

Going forward into the next sub-section, I introduce community oriented and culturally responsive methods, this is in extension of the aims of decolonising methodologies.