Decolonising Social Research Series: Decolonising Writing and Representation

Decolonising research is concerned with centring the stories of those who were marginalised by colonialism and charting the lasting effects of coloniality in the contemporary world. The stories of marginalised peoples are not easily told within the confines of established forms of academic writing that were built from, and for, elites of the Global North/West. Questions about how we approach the representation of people, their histories and identities are therefore central as part of how we conduct and convey our research. Participative methodologies and research linked to activism can also call for collaborative writing, creative writing, or forms of representation other than writing, which may sit uneasily alongside the traditional model of a PhD dissertation and its supervision. This session will be an opportunity to explore questions of representation, authority and authorship, and to explore forms of writing and communicating research that seek to disrupt traditional hierarchies of knowledge.
 

Speakers:

Dr Sadhvi Dar, Queen Mary University London

Sadhvi’s research has contributed to understanding measurement and culture, process of knowledge production, governance, and accountability structures, always with a focus on voices that are marginalised or muted in institutions. She draws on artistic methodologies in both writing and teaching. Dr. Dar is one of the five women of colour who founded the Building the Anti-Racist Classroom collective (BARC), to develop and promote anti-racist practices in our learning environments.

Dr Gemma Sou, RMIT University, Melbourne

Gemma researches representations of human vulnerability and lived experiences of people affected by disasters, predominantly in the Caribbean. She regularly collaborates with artists to communicate her research in engaging, thoughtful and socially responsible ways.

Lakshmi Bose, University of Cambridge

Lakshmi is a doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge whose research centres on intergenerational female activism in the context of state securitisation and militarisation in South Africa and Turkey. She is affiliated to the Politics of Representation Collective, an interdisciplinary group of academic researchers based in the UK, who feature work exploring various international settings, conditions and engagements with diverse communities.

Dr Hadiza Kere Abdulrahman, Bishop Grosseteste University

Hadiza is interested in the ways that colonial(ism/ity) has had an effect on shaping the narratives that describe the system and education in general, as well as the hidden curriculum that exists in this form of education and socialisation. She also explores how ‘coloniality of knowledge, power and being’ shape who we are as people, and especially how we come to know the things that we know. As a lecturer in Inclusive Education, she seeks to make a case for inclusivity in the widest sense of the term and in a way that acknowledges its contextual variations.