NUR805 Decolonizing Methodologies Chs. 11 & 12

Ch. 11 Research - Choosing the Margins

Searching for Solutions

Definitions

• Liminal
• Marginalized vs. vulnerable
• Cycle of colonialism
• De-colonization
• Peoples vs. populations
• Neo-liberalism ideologies

Research History

• 1931: Guidelines for Human Experimentation
• 1947 Nuremberg Code of Ethics
• 1964 Declaration of Helsinki
• 1979 U.S. Belmont Report
• 1999 Human Rights Act
• Professional Ethics Codes of Practice
• Ethics Legislation

5 Conditions of Decolonization

• Critical consciousness
• Re-imagining the world
• Ways ideas intersect
• Movement when status quo disturbed
• Concept of structure

Qualitative researchers in the margins

Benefits

• Member of community
• Facilitate expression of marginalized voices in genuine and authentic ways
• Contributions to society
• Deep sense of purpose
• Others?

Challenges

• Labeled leftist or native sympathizer
• Discredited by peers and academic institutions
• Poor personal and professional boundaries
• Burnout
• Few peer colleagues
• Potential for bias

Challenges

• Magnitude and number of urgent tasks
• Expected involvement in community activities
• Lack of distance and objectivity

Ch. 11 Summary

Ch. 12 Getting the Story Right

Indigenous characteristics

• Deep conservatism
• Suspect of agents of change
• Many shared visions, survival, self-determination
• Need to survive in a culturally hostile environment
• Research exists within systems of power, exploits and results never reach indigenous peoples

Colonial Processes

• Religion and Education
• Intentional destruction and ridicule of indigenous cultures, languages, practices
• Mono-culturalism of Western European institutions of knowledge
• Exclusion and pushed to margins of society

Globalization and Marketplace

• Dominant Neo-liberal economic theory
• Field-based researchers' imperatives solve problems, turn quick profit
• NGOs as bridges
• Two sets of peoples competing for attention and priority (exploited victims & those presumed to govern)
• Indigenous unique commodities

Challenges

Vision

• Share stories from local communities across space and time
• Create international network clearing house of research
• De-colonize, dismantle European monocultural research as only way of knowing
• Celebrate the nexus!

Questions

• What roles do DNPs have in supporting qualitative research done in the margins?
• How can DNPs contribute to the vision of indigenous people's research?
• What challenges and hope do you see?