The Decolonising Social Research seminar series, sponsored by the SWDTP, is for doctoral researchers (and their supervisors) at any and every stage of the doctoral journey, who aspire for their research to contribute towards decolonisation in any space or form. Through the short series of events, we aim to stimulate debate around the tough questions that decolonisation poses for social research, to forge supportive networks across universities of the South West and to signpost readings and resources. Across the series, we will engage with the work of established scholars who have published on different aspects of decolonising research, the ideas and experiences of early career researchers, as well as representatives of marginalised groups, whose knowledge has historically been excluded from the academy.
Decolonising Writing and Representation is the final seminar in this series: Past seminars in the series:
Decolonising Theory
Decolonising Epistemologies
Decolonising Research Ethics
Decolonising Methodologies
Please see the SWDTP's website ([ Ссылка ]) and twitter (@_SWDTP) to find out about past Decolonising Social Research Seminars and upcoming training. Recordings of all sessions will be uploaded to our youtube channel in the upcoming months.
Social research has been complicit in slavery, colonialism and racism, in ways that are more and less visible. Social research has also contributed towards antiracist and decolonising movements and activism. This seminar series will explore theoretical and methodological tools for conducting research that is antiracist and decolonising. It will look at how we design and conduct research that disrupts established power relations within research, including those between researcher and researched, expert and novice.
Decolonising research is concerned with centring the stories of those who were marginalised by colonialism and charting the lasting effects of coloniality in the contemporary world. The stories of marginalised peoples are not easily told within the confines of established forms of academic writing that were built from, and for, elites of the Global North/West. Questions about how we approach the representation of people, their histories and identities are therefore central as part of how we conduct and convey our research. Participative methodologies and research linked to activism can also call for collaborative writing, creative writing, or forms of representation other than writing, which may sit uneasily alongside the traditional model of a PhD dissertation and its supervision. This session will be an opportunity to explore questions of representation, authority and authorship, and to explore forms of writing and communicating research that seek to disrupt traditional hierarchies of knowledge.
Speakers:
Dr Sadhvi Dar, Queen Mary University London
Sadhvi’s research has contributed to understanding measurement and culture, process of knowledge production, governance, and accountability structures, always with a focus on voices that are marginalised or muted in institutions. She draws on artistic methodologies in both writing and teaching. Dr. Dar is one of the five women of colour who founded the Building the Anti-Racist Classroom collective (BARC), to develop and promote anti-racist practices in our learning environments.
Dr Gemma Sou, RMIT University, Melbourne
Gemma researches representations of human vulnerability and lived experiences of people affected by disasters, predominantly in the Caribbean. She regularly collaborates with artists to communicate her research in engaging, thoughtful and socially responsible ways.
Lakshmi Bose, University of Cambridge
Lakshmi is a doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge whose research centres on intergenerational female activism in the context of state securitisation and militarisation in South Africa and Turkey. She is affiliated to the Politics of Representation Collective, an interdisciplinary group of academic researchers based in the UK, who feature work exploring various international settings, conditions and engagements with diverse communities.
Dr Hadiza Kere Abdulrahman, Bishop Grosseteste University
Hadiza is interested in the ways that colonial(ism/ity) has had an effect on shaping the narratives that describe the system and education in general, as well as the hidden curriculum that exists in this form of education and socialisation. She also explores how ‘coloniality of knowledge, power and being’ shape who we are as people, and especially how we come to know the things that we know. As a lecturer in Inclusive Education, she seeks to make a case for inclusivity in the widest sense of the term and in a way that acknowledges its contextual variations.
