Painting knowledge and writing art: the methodological challenge of co-creation, acknowledgement, and epistemic justice in ethnographic research

Catherina Wilson and Sapin Makengele

Chapter 11 in Methodology to Address Grand Challenges, 2026, pp 254-282 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Just as in other formerly colonized countries, outsiders have mainly written Congolese history. Through the example of a collaborative painting performance that took place in Libenge in January 2015, this chapter acknowledges the role that people outside of academia play in the production of knowledge. Inspired by Fabian, we use the performance framework on two levels: to describe the painting performance; and to reflect on how knowledge is co-created in (and outside) academia. Co-creation challenges scholars to consider alternative routes that deviate from established epistemological written practices to critically understand the world. Including non-written Indigenous people's historical understanding is important because it confronts dominant narratives that overlook the dispossession for many people around the world. In this chapter we tackle epistemic inequalities in three ways: first, by raising the question of epistemic justice and pushing for the acknowledgement of authorship for people outside of the university; second, by calling for other types of academic output; and third, by recognizing other types of knowledge as critical knowledge.

Keywords: Epistemic Justice; Decolonizing Knowledge; Ethnographic Research; Co-creation; Painting Performance; Grand Challenge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035314300
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