Provisional Notes on Decolonizing Research Methodology and Undoing Its Dirty History

Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
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Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni: Department of Leadership and Transformation, University of South Africa, Pretoria

Journal of Developing Societies, 2019, vol. 35, issue 4, 481-492

Abstract: Decolonizing research methodology is a vast and complex task of undoing its dirty history. The dirty history is so hidden within research methodology that only a careful decolonial mind can unmask and reveal it. This task of decolonizing research methodology lies at the core of struggles for epistemic freedom involving rethinking and unthinking dominant ways of producing knowledge. This short article tackles the sacred cow of research methodology, which is often approached as though it is an objective and technical issue of research procedures and technologies of gathering data, rather than one which is very colonial and political, always shot through by complex questions of power, identity, values, and ethics.

Keywords: Colonialism; decolonization; cognitive empire; decolonial mind; dirty history; methodology; unthinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jodeso:v:35:y:2019:i:4:p:481-492

DOI: 10.1177/0169796X19880417

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