Rethinking using assemblages in more-than-human methods: Towards a decolonised toolkit?

• In Event: Messing with Methods in More-than-Human Worlds II

Abstract

When I came to investigate wellbeing and antidepressant use some years ago I felt a strong political imperative to avoid the blaming associated with the individual notion of wellbeing. I staged a methodological experiment: instead of enacting the individual, I put the assemblage concept to work during each stage of an empirical research project exploring how people experience antidepressant use (McLeod 2014). I was satisfied with the experiment, particularly because the knowledge generated by the project did not reinforce the blaming of individuals. However, as a white academic living on Aboriginal lands in Australia, I need to attend to additional political implications relating to using these methods. In this project, I did not acknowledge the specificity of the Euro-centred posthuman theorising that underpinned my methodological experiment, nor did I acknowledge Indigenous non-dualistic relational epistemes and ontologies (Todd 2016; Sundberg 2014). I am propelled ask if it is possible to use more-than-human methodological tools in ways that do not re-enact the colonial gesture? And specifically, can using assemblages in more-than-human research methods be part of a methodological toolkit for decolonisation? I explore this question by drawing on decolonial and postcolonial scholarship, critical improvisation studies, and insights from voice improvisation practice. This paper contributes to the conversation about how more-than-human methods might ally with decolonisation, in STS and the social sciences more broadly.

McLeod, K. 2014. Orientating to Assembling: Qualitative Inquiry for More-Than-Human-Worlds. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Vol 13, 377-394.

Sundberg J. 2014. Decolonizing Posthumanist Geographies. Cultural Geographies. Vol 21 (1) 33-47.

Todd, Z. 2016. An Indigenous Feminist’s Take on The Ontological Turn: ‘Ontology’ Is Just Another Word For Colonialism. Journal of Historical Sociology. Vol 29, 1 March.

Author

• Kim McLeod, University of Tasmania