25/03/25 Summaries and relevant papers

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.

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