25/03/25 Summaries and relevant papers

Shared summaries from various indigenous methods papers 

POLOKO

• Territorial embodies experiences
• Co-creation of knowledge
• Democratised communication of knowledge (language, media )
• Shared decision thinking
• Respectful negotiation
• Subject of collective rights and not objects of the study
• Rejects methodological neutrality
• Interculturally in archeological interpretation

SACKY (Lekgotla- Discussion)

• Decolonized IK research method
• Community engagement
• Cultural sensitivity
• 2 main pillars; shared understanding and
• Position participants as co researchers and knowledge producers
• Transformative participatory approach
• Role of researcher ; not to facilitate
• Epistemic authority distributed
• Challenges and advocates for cultural research methodologies
• Context-sensitive – challenges universalism
• Immediacy, accessibility and collective ownership of knowledge

DIEGO

• moving beyond science and the production of knowldge
• Participatory action research
• not separating science from politics
• separation of the two as a form of government control
• challenges the criteria that only one scientist knows
• PAC is unsidciplined can overcome the compartmetalisation of knowldge production
• transformation of selves in the resreach process (Reflection could be a method) -body has feelings , reason
• cultivation and nurturing of wisdom and knowledge (E>G social and insurgent cartography) tool,technique, method
• strong rejection of scientific neutrality
• relates situationally and territories
• Author opens up more ideas on the purpose of resreach, from colonial to more ,beyond the experience-reason relationship
• Commitment to transformation (racism  , sexism, classism, capitalism etc)
• Criticism of extractives and encourages reciprocity

Shati

Decolonising research in a Sub-Saharan African context: exploring Ubuntu as a foundation for research methodology, ethics and agenda https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2018.1432404

• Ubuntu
• Ubuntu as a research paradigm
• Decolonising research in SSA
• Argues that research in the region should not rely on western knowledge
• Rethink ethic and purpose of the research
• Ubuntu as a holistic way of conceptualising research
• Ubuntu is about interconnectedness and humanness and togetherness
• Legitimate research method: that includes communities through participation
• Community epistemologies are about strengthening connectedness
• Ethical approach of respect and dignity; towards community; towards culture; towards individuals
• Ethics and methodology cannot be separated
• Ethics of the method matter in the approach
• It is about relationality and interconnectedness between researcher and community
• Take home message: you see yourself as part of the method; you are not a rigid object in the process; the way you interact and speak with the community needs to be in mind during the design of the research; participatory methods should be prioritised; community members are the owners of the knowledge you are collecting – not just subjects; challenges neutrality (you cannot be a neutral observer)

Tebo

Mkabela, Q. (2005). Using the Afrocentric method in researching indigenous African culture. The qualitative report, 10(1), 178-189.

Penxa-Matholeni, N. (2023) ‘Storytelling as an indigenous research methodology.’ (Chapter 8) Moving methodologies. Doing practical and missional theology in an African context

• Methodology is relational and participatory
• Draws on PAR (participatory action research)
• Afrocentric Method_ Using the Afrocentric method in resreach African culture
• Both a paradigm and a method , guiding the entire resreach process to study IK authentically
• AM emphasizes cultural centered (relevance, respectful and powerful)
• Critiques studying African indigenous knowledge using western methods
• Critiques Cartesian dualism (knowledge and intellectual dimensions not separte)
• Intersubjectivity
• Relationality between people placed in high regard
• Critiques epistemic neutrality
• Embraces positionality, cultural grounding and values
• Epistemic violence erasing `African voices
• Emphasizes Accessibility and resonance
• Knowledge production through: oral traditions, story telling, proverbs and cultural practices and taboos.

Vladimir

Pinto, L. Cortez, N. Guzman, D. Curivil,F. (2018)  Experiencias emergentes de metodologías descolonizadoras de investigación frente al extractivismo epistémico. Aportes para la investigación educativa intra-, intercultural y plurilingüe en Bolivia. Sinéctica Revista electrónica de educación.

Micarelli, G.  (2018) Investigar en un mundo encantado: los aportes de las metodologías indígenas al quehacer etnográfico. universitas humanística no. 86 julio-diciembre de 2018 pp: 219-245.

Huanca Soto, Ramiro R. (2017) Conocimiento y pluriversidad de mundos en universidades indígenas: Amawtay Wasi (Ecuador) y UAIINCRIC (Colombia). Estudios Artísticos Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Colombia. vol. 3, núm. 3.

Barreneche, C. Gifichiu, J. Jitomañue. Umirez, S. (2025) El hacha fría. Palabra de Tabaco para curar la tecnología. Alcaldía de Bogotá.

Rigoberto Banguero Velasco; Valerie V. V. Gruber (2022). Emancipatory Methodologies: Knowledge Production and (Re existence of the Misak People in Colombia. Revista Pacha Vol. 3, No. 8, 2022.

Sandoval, R. (2021) El sujeto como estratega de su propia metodología de investigación Contra el anexionismo metodológico. Universidad de Guadalajara.

• Interculturality, dialogue between different forms of knowledge, oral tradition, strengthening of indigenous knowledge, ancestral spirituality. Three dimensions of life.
• Words have power; they help us to live and feel. Knowledge gained from reading the body and the environment, leading to abundance and healing.
• Cooling knowledge to control its outcomes. The pursuit of personal power through knowledge is undesirable and irresponsible. Knowledge is both physical and spiritual. There are verbal strategies for the pursuit of knowledge.
• Minka(Minga), cosmic interculturality. Relevance. Knowledge is weaving and sowing. Rationality geared towards community life. Research is political because knowledge is. Nature is both physical and spiritual. Awakening. Fluid thinking. Pluriversality. Everything has life.
• Emancipatory methodologies, latá-latá (everything for everyone), a philosophical principle. Gatherings around the fire with the elders, mingas, maps, consultations with the community and the council. The spiral method. Feeling and thinking with the earth. The Misak’s own methods. Moving beyond the subject-object dichotomy. Latá latá related to Misak principles and based on the law of origin. Research is tailored to the needs of the community, not those of academia. Replacing the hierarchical structure.
• Methodology rooted in practice. Moving beyond annexationism. A decolonial perspective. Radical imagination as a methodological component. It does not begin with a rigid protocol. Instead of: problem, method, results, it proposes: experience, reflection, methodological construction, knowledge. The methodology is constructed during the process, not beforehand.
• Cognitive autonomy stems from language; it is necessary to understand the world and reality through one’s own language; they are developing their own methodology. ‘Indio’ is a misnomer coined by the coloniser. Indigenous peoples are stateless nations. I now understand that the word ‘indigenous’ denotes a political category, not a cultural or racial one (though it is racialised). It homogenises; it does not account for who we are except through representations created without the peoples. I realised that when the word ‘Indigenous’ is used by the peoples, it is because it can and must be used to provide legal and political resistance in their struggles; in other words, the category carries a political usage; it is not meant to essentialise or to classify.
• Mambeo as a method. Knowledge, and therefore research, flows through words and actions; this is why mambe and ambil are fundamental, as they enable us to know, act, understand, listen and feel. Circles of conversation employ storytelling, gestures and humour, active listening and respect; it is not linear, but a collective weaving. It is neither individualistic nor a part of the individual; authorship and authority reside in the tobacco. It is not homogeneous. Knowledge must be shared; this brings joy and abundance. Systems of knowledge exist within indigenous communities. They do not seek development or wealth through knowledge; it is intended for life, the survival of culture and ancestral wisdom, to resist and prevent the disappearance of both people and the jungle. To learn, one must have a need for that knowledge and understand its importance; this is done in the malocas, which help to preserve ancestral knowledge and sustain the community. Knowledge is lived, experienced and passed on. It is not enough simply to possess knowledge; one must plant coca and tobacco, otherwise those words will not reach anyone’s heart. There is no practical reality that contradicts the discourse: ‘the action of tobacco is born in the spiritual realm, takes shape in thought, is projected into words and finally manifests itself in deeds’; this enables us to know how to maintain balance, how to cool down.

Next steps

Next meeting April 29, 2026 4:00 pm Botswana time