Decolonizing methods

Abstract

Interdisciplinary scholarship has highlighted the coloniality of knowledge: The idea that mainstream research is an integral component of racialized modernity that reflects perspectives of the powerful and reproduces domination. To counteract the coloniality of knowledge, decolonial theorists advocate research strategies of accompaniment that draw upon local understandings as an epistemological basis for rethinking mainstream research. To illustrate these strategies, I briefly describe observations from a program of research that compares experience of relationship across diverse West African and North American settings. Qualitative methods of accompaniment help illuminate forms of marginalized knowledge that not only make visible the political economy of relationship research but also suggest directions for sustainable ways of relating that reflect and promote the interests of broad humanity.