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The Praxis of Decoloniality in Researcher Training and Community-Based Data Collection

NCJ Number
254044
Journal
American Journal of Community Psychology Volume: 62 Issue: 3-4 Dated: 2018 Pages: 385-395
Date Published
2018
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The authors of this article detail their praxis of decoloniality in the context of a community based study that employed a quantitative experimental methodology to evaluate an intervention for girls involved in the juvenile legal system.
Abstract

They report resisting the essentializing of methodology that positions quantitative paradigms as impermeable to reflexivity and decoloniality, and describe a model for training and supervising researchers engaged in an experimental randomized controlled trial of an advocacy program for girls, most of whom were girls of color and about half of whom identified as LGBT. In this way, they considered researcher training as a critical teaching context and describe the ways in which their training, community based data collection, and supervision structure were anchored in de/anti/post colonial and indigenous scholarships. Specifically, their praxis is centered on conducting research as a site of resistance to hegemony, and practicing a critical compassion rooted in remembering complex personhoods. They further discuss the boundaries and limitations of their own epistemic power in relation to two central questions: how can researchers influence how knowledge is produced? How can researchers influence how knowledge producers are themselves produced? (publisher abstract modified)

Date Published: January 1, 2018