Postcolonial and Decolonial Allyship: Researching the Third Sector from the Global North

• In Event: Applying, Extending, and Refining Theoretical Approaches to Understand Voluntary Action

Abstract

As we (re)consider the role of the third sector in times of ongoing crises, it is important to develop research theories that unveil and disrupt what Santos (2014) described as ‘epistemicide’, an erasure of knowledge(s) inherent in much third sector research. This means that important, specifically Southern knowledge, is often absent from subsequent responses to crises.

A core principle in critical theory approaches that are inclusive of feminist, postcolonial and decolonial theorisations for doing research is the emancipatory concept of doing research with rather than about research participants (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Santos, 2018). Hence, ‘rewriting and rerighting’ (Smith, 2012, p. 72) epistemes and existences otherwise displaced – and arguably dismissed – in global North hegemonic research practices. The impetus for this theorisation is in and of itself an act of decolonising assumptions about how and why research should be conducted and disseminated, challenging fundamental traditions of the occidental (European) scholarship that dominates the field of third sector research.

This theoretical paper aims to contribute to theoretical approaches to doing research with global South participants, at sites of many crises arising from colonial pasts and the coloniality of the present, for global North third sector researchers. Drawing on key scholars across the fields of feminist, postcolonial and decolonial research theories and arising research methodologies, this paper argues for the primary step of forming allyship with researchers and research participants from the global South. The paper offers a set of important principles that assist in the formation of research strategies with third sector or civil society organisations. Whilst considering the traditional barriers to doing collaborative research when based in the formal settings of the university, for example, or the constraints imposed by funders, this paper also provide examples of specific qualitative research methods that encapsulate these principles.

References

References

Mignolo, W., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality : concepts, analytics, and praxis. Duke University Press.
Santos, B. d. S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315634876
Santos, B. d. S. (2018). The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478002000
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed. ed.). Zed Books.

Authors

• Ruth Lesley Phillips, University of Sydney

• Tanja Dittfeld