And Still We Hold Our Tongues: The Ironies of Knowledge Production in a World Committed to Lies

• In Event: “Between Shadow and Substance”: Examining What It Means to Move Toward Collective Freedom Through Methodologies

Abstract

Objectives. Much has been written about the foundational role “knowledge production” has played in the preservation of the oppressor’s innocence (Malwhinney, 1998), and in rescuing what Tuck and Yang (2012) describe as “settler futurity” (p. 3). Simultaneously, research committed to collective freedom has played a critical role in disrupting what is both, egregiously consequential, and taken-for-granted. However, as Cesaire argued, to think clearly is to think dangerously. This paper, inspired by what a young activist researcher described as the paradox of “truth-telling in a world where truths are costly,” draws its lessons from three critical participatory action research [CPAR] projects that took place between 2020 and 2023. Grounded on the projects’ axiological and epistemic stances and their pursuit of radically democratic, collective, critical, and liberatory methodologies; this paper interrogates and explores the ironies, (im)possibilities, and costs of asking questions “for real for real'' in a context materially and affectively held hostage by what Martin-Baro (1994) calls the collective lie.

Theoretical Framework. Theoretically, this paper draws from the participatory, critical and decolonizing traditions to analyze and consider the ways in which praxical inquiry that centers reality not as “an object but a process of relationships” (Wilson, 2008, p. 73) and that understands knowledge as most powerful when produced collaboratively through action (Fine et al., 2003) unfolds within a context of converging pandemics, settler-colonialism, racial capitalism, and resistance. Conceptually, this article leans into Cesaire, Fanon, Sartre, and Berlant to illustrate particular features of “the collective lie” and iteratively considers the ways these features dialectically inform each of these projects’ methodological trajectories.

Data and Methods. The data corpus encompasses more than 200 hours of collective praxis, dialogue, oral histories, testimonios (Reyes & Curry Rodriguez, 2012), pláticas (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016), theorizing-back sessions, and more than 100 methodological and analytical memos. Analysis consisted of oscillation between data and theory (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988), iteratively reflecting upon the study’s central question: “how do participants engaging in collective, critical, justice-focussed (Tuck and Yang, 2018) research methodologies describe, experience and negotiate the affective and material tensions that arise when fighting for truth in a world that “uses its energy and power for trickery and deceit.” (Césaire, 1955, p. 3) Secondary analysis further engages with theory to focus on the affective registers (Jakimow & Yumasdaleni, 2016) and what participants described as the material and emotional consequences of truth-telling.

Findings and Scholarly Significance. This paper’s findings highlight: (1) how research collectives engage with the dialectic of truth-telling as simultaneously freeing and negatively consequential within their current contexts, (2) the ways in which critical researchers understood and negotiated the material and affective payoffs and tolls of investing in lies, and (3) the power and transformative quality of temporality in thirding truth-lie binaries and in exchange, building collective repertoires of liberatory knowledges and imaginaries. Together, these findings aim to advance our collective struggles towards alternative public existences (Peterson, 2019); not only counteracting strategic erasure, but gifting nuance vital for sustaining our efforts towards a public liberatory science (Martin-Baro, 1994).

Author

• Miguel Casar, University of Alabama