Article Details

Journal of Public Administration (JOPA)

Your article preview is detailed below
ISSN : 2
Decolonising research methodology must include undoing its dirty history

Author: Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni

Affiliation: University of South Africa

Source: Journal of Public Administration, 2023-04-05 13:22:09

Accreditation: Department of Higher Education and Training(DHET)



Abstract: Decolonising research methodology must include undoing its dirty history

Maori anthropologist, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, in her seminal work, "Decolonising Methodologies", argues that research is a dirty word. Hyphenating "research" into "research" is very useful, because it reveals what is involved, what it really means and goes beyond the naive view of "research" as an innocent pursuit of knowledge. It underscores the fact that "researching" involves the activity of undressing other people so as to see them naked. It is also a process of reducing some people to the level of microorganism: putting them under a magnifying glass to peep into their private lives, secrets, taboos, thinking and their sacred worlds. Building on Smith's work, my concern here is the context in which research methodology is designed and deployed. In particular, it concerns the relationship between methodology with power, the imperial/colonial project as well as the impli