Decolonization

Much has been written about decolonizing practices in the academy. This essay engages the conversation by focusing on the analysis phase of research to consider how research continues to be a process of colonization and epistemicide. Advances in community-engaged research (CEnR) ameliorate some issues of inclusion. Yet, institutional procedures and claims to methods that entrench a scientifically enlightened way of knowing continue to systematically exclude Indigenous knowledge and many other systems of knowledge. Indeed, Tuck and Yang's question about what is distinct and sovereign, remains. Drawing on the analysis phase of a CEnR project with Native Americans, we describe our process for centering Indigenous epistemologies. While data gathering and analysis were inclusive, we were not always successful in maintaining the community partner's sovereignty. This example demonstrates the challenges of institutions that long for us to forget that there are other ways of knowing, and the promises of relational thinking and being as anti-oppressive, though not yet decolonized research. Pausing to examine our practices during the analysis phase of research allows us to ask and enact different forms of relationality and reimagine how we come to know.