Online Courses
We will soon be offering online courses beginning with a module on Decolonising Research Methodologies. Watch this space or get in touch.
"The decolonising methodologies series has been such a beautiful and raw space the past few weeks. I always come away feeling hopeful and empowered..."
This is a six-session programme includes:
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six hours of pre-recorded lectures
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a reading and resource list per topic
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exercises for students to engage with the resources and apply to their own work.
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option to have a 1-1 tutorial with one of the lecturers and obtain feedback on the written tasks.
Programme Details
Session one: Decolonising methodologies: introduction & context
Session two: Decolonising discourse: postcolonial pedagogy, marginal voices and feminist knowledge
Session three: Decolonising methodology: Intersectionality and black feminist theory
Session four: Decolonising methodologies: Inter-sexualities
Session six: Decolonising writing: Theory, structures, praxis
Course Aims
The course has been designed by leading scholars in Black feminist and Critical Race Theory (CRT) as well as decolonial studies approaches to education and research.
It is for:
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postgraduate researchers
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(early career) scholars and
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anyone interested in how to decolonise their work.
Please contact us to register your interest or for more details on bespoke courses and workshops.
Programme
Decolonising Research Methodologies: Theory and Praxis
‘Decolonisation’ is largely understood as having been achieved during the twentieth century as a result of anti-colonial and nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. However, the ways in which we think and engage in the world today including in relation to the (re-)production of knowledge systems continue to be marked by a coloniality. This introductory session examines decolonisation as a necessary ongoing process through decolonial studies and its key concepts and praxes.
Scholars will be able to:
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Develop an understanding of the continuities of colonialism including how slavery and other forms of socio-economic and political exploitation shape the current world system (modernity).
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Explore key ideas and concepts from the field of decolonial studies with a focus on knowledge re-production.
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Ask how our everyday lives including our field of research has been and remains impacted by colonial legacies.
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Evaluate an example/problematic from our own areas of study drawing on decolonial thought and praxis.
Session one
Decolonising Methodologies: Introduction & Context
‘Decolonisation’ is largely understood as having been achieved during the twentieth century as a result of anti-colonial and nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. However, the ways in which we think and engage in the world today including in relation to the (re-)production of knowledge systems continue to be marked by a coloniality. This introductory session examines decolonisation as a necessary ongoing process through decolonial studies and its key concepts and praxes.
Scholars will be able to:
-
Develop an understanding of the continuities of colonialism including how slavery and other forms of socio-economic and political exploitation shape the current world system (modernity).
-
Explore key ideas and concepts from the field of decolonial studies with a focus on knowledge re-production.
-
Ask how our everyday lives including our field of research has been and remains impacted by colonial legacies.
-
Evaluate an example/problematic from our own areas of study drawing on decolonial thought and praxis.
Session TWO
Decolonising discourse: Postcolonial pedagogy, marginal voices and feminist knowledge
The aim of this session is to interrogate how we situate the raced and gendered ‘other’ in everyday discourse and why and how marginalised groups articulate alternative world views. We look at postcolonial theories of difference and critically investigate how knowledge of the other is embodied and reproduced through the pedagogic practice of what we teach and learn in higher education.
Scholars will be able to:
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Appreciate the social, moral and philosophical arguments for decolonising research perspectives
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Demonstrate an understanding the complexities of race power voice and agency in social justice research
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Critically evaluate the how knowledge of ‘the other’ is reproduced through research in Western systems of knowledge
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Apply their understanding of raced, gender and power relations in everyday research situations
Session Three
Decolonising methodology: Intersectionality and black feminist theory
In this session we consider the complexities and controversies of an ‘intersectional approach’ and its integral value to the analysis of race, class, gender, sexuality and other social divisions. The objective of this session is to critically examine ‘intersectionality’ as a Black feminist standpoint theory and ask if it can be effectively employed to understand the nature of power and difference in neo-colonial sites such as higher education.
Scholars will be able to:
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Critically apply an intersectional analysis when undertaking and evaluating empirical research
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Demonstrate an informed understanding race, faith, gender in social justice research
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Apply their understanding of intersection of raced, gender and power relations in everyday research situations
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Critically apply feminist theories of intersectionality and critical race theory in different social, political and empirical contexts.
Session four
Decolonising methodology: Inter-Sexualities
This session requires and builds on the previous sessions exploring the importance of intersectional approaches to research. It focuses on what the Decolonizing Sexualities Network describes as “suturing queer of colour critique to decolonial studies” (Jivraj et al, 2020). This intersectional decolonizing sexuality approach enables researchers to think beyond singleissue politics of queerness whilst also exposing the role of sexuality in uneven relations of power.
Scholars will be able to:
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Extend their knowledge of intersectionality to critically explore the convergences of sexuality, race and gender and its compounded effect on inequalities
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Understand the specific role of sexuality in uneven global power relations stemming from coloniality and empire.
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Critically evaluate the continuities of uneven power/coloniality in queer/feminist theories from a decolonising sexualities perspective.
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Apply their understanding of a decolonising sexualities approach to their own fields of study.
Session five
Decolonising spaces of research: Archives, museums, (art) histories and heritage in praxis
This session aims to counter Imperial understandings of ‘race’ and racial hierarchies in relation to art history, history, museums and archives. The very systems of preservation, conservation, categorisation and systems of naming are embedded with Eurocentric cultural hierarchies. These ways of defining, describing and categorising art, artefacts, cultures and knowledge systems are formulated in English and within paradigms of thought borne of colonial and imperial cultural values. The aim of this session is to attend to imperial violences that separate and differentiate the production of culture from ‘Europe’ and ‘Other’ and situate them outside of modernity itself.
Scholars will be able to:
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Understand self-determined (non-English) naming and classification challenging hegemonic systems cultural cataloguing
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Engage respectfully with non-European Space-Time underpinning ‘other’ knowledge systems, philosophy and cosmologies.
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Evaluate knowledge systems that are not conditional upon their determination in relation to Western values e.g. Ethnographic versus ‘high art’.
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Critically consider how 21st century cultural spaces of archives, art, artefacts can be truly internationalist and not imperialist in ethos.
Session six
Decolonising writing: Theory, structures, praxis
The aim of this session is to evaluate how we might ‘decolonise writing’ in the academy as researchers, publishers, and readers. The first section of the session will look at the theoretical approach and critiques present in ‘Black Theory’. The second half will be an introduction to how to focus on the praxis of writing itself and how to attend to the obstacles to writing - structural, psychological, and practical. This is an attempt to recognise the effect of colonial systems of research praxis that inhibit and shape the process of writing. Developing your authorial voice is at heart of this session, whilst recognising the systemic structural negations of ‘other’ voices.
Scholars will be able to:
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Appreciate the role of Black Theory in ‘decolonising writing’ the academy.
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Recognise the effect colonial systems of research praxis have on shaping the process of writing
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Critically explore their own writing skills and develop a set of bullet points or ‘goals’.
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Evaluate personal psychological, structural and institutional ‘obstacles’ to the writing process