Community engagement with a postcolonial, African-based relational paradigm

Abstract

The article engages with debates on democratizing and decolonizing research to promote multi-epistemological research partnerships that revolutionize the research methods landscape, bringing new paradigms onto the map to advance new research methods that engage and transform communities. The argument in the article is that people of all worlds irrespective of geographic location, colour, race, ability, gender or socio-economic status should have equal rights in the research scholarship and research process to name their world views, apply them to define themselves and be heard. An African-based relational paradigm that informs a postcolonial research methodological framework within which indigenous and non–indigenous researchers can fit their research is presented. The article further illustrates how an African relational ontological assumption can inform a complimentary technique of gathering biographical data on the participants and how African relational epistemologies can inform partnership of knowledge systems. The use of proverbs and songs as indigenous literature and community voices that researchers can use to deconstruct stereotypes and deficit theorizing and community-constructed ideologies of dominance is illustrated.