Decolonizing approaches to studying history and linguistic-cultural heritage. Methods, tools, results and challenges (research seminar) 3700-CS2-SD-DSS-23
Research in the humanities has been profoundly decolonized over the last several decades through the inclusion of postcolonial and Indigenous perspectives. But how often do we ask ourselves to what degree the results of this research are available to Indigenous, minority or broader society? And to what extent have they decolonized us as researchers? Is our research useful for people who, as a result of colonialism and modern policies, have been deprived of their own sense of history and belonging to the past?
This multidisciplinary research seminar embraces different areas and methods of inquiry, from history, linguistics and anthropology to engaged and participatory forms of research. Its special focus will be on the Indigenous cultures of the Americas and on ethnic/language minorities from Europe and other parts of the world. Participants will include MA and PhD students as well as researchers representing different disciplines and fields of expertise. The seminar’s participants will actively engage in pursuing new studies, interpretations, understandings and uses of past and present realities in the multifaceted process of decolonization where the voices of Indigenous people and minority groups are often ignored. These voices have long been underrepresented and misrepresented not only in historical research but also in the cognate fields of anthropology, linguistics, sociology, and cultural or heritage studies. This can be efficiently challenged and transformed by more collaborative and empowering research paradigms, especially when they avail themselves of such powerful tools as local languages in which traditional knowledge, memory, concepts, and patterns are encoded, expressed, and transmitted. In order to address these challenges, the participants will be encouraged to develop and present their own critical research relevant for multidisciplinary inquiry into history as well as (socio)linguistic and cultural studies (broadly defined), from within a decolonizing perspective.
One of the leading themes of the seminar will be equitable models of collaboration with native students and researchers have recently been advocated within the frameworks of Community-Based Participatory Research and related paradigms such as community-driven research and empowering research. These approaches have also been described as the transition from the more traditional non-cooperative research performed on communities and from patronizing models (applied research for a community) to a more cooperative and equitable paradigm: research with and by a community. The seminar is also grounded in the conviction that non-patronizing collaborative work with Indigenous people and members of minority or local communities in general, when respected as subjects and agents rather than regarded as objects of research, can significantly enrich our scholarly work and understanding, overcoming some persistent methodological weaknesses and contributing to the decolonization of research. Despite growing expectations regarding the “interdisciplinarity” of research, knowledge-producing paradigms in academia continue to draw sharp distinctions between “natural” and “human” sciences and to divide human experience into distinct historical, cultural, political, social, economic, and psychological fields. By focusing on many forms of dialogues embracing Indigenous intellectual and historical traditions and local knowledge, this research seminar will also promote more decolonized and decolonizing research practices.
Type of course
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Development of critical and multidisciplinary tools for decolonizing research
Refining research methods and skills
Developing individual research projects related to the themes of the seminar
Depending the knowledge on theoretical and practical aspects of decolonizing research in the humanities
Refining presentation and discussion skills
Assessment criteria
Each participant has to deliver at least one formal presentation based on original and critical research and participate actively in the discussions throughout the whole seminar cycle
Bibliography
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Brown, Leslie, and Susan Strega, eds. 2005. Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and Anti-Oppressive Approaches. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
Chilisa, Bagele. 2012. Indigenous Research Methodologies. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Clark, Elizabeth A. 2004. History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa. 2009. “Research Models, Community Engagement, and Linguistic Fieldwork: Reflections on Working within Canadian Indigenous Communities.” Language Documentation and Conservation 3, no. 1: 15–50.
Duff, Wendy M., Andrew Flinn,
Karen Emily Suurtamm, and David A. Wallace. 2013. “Social Justice Impact of Archives: A Preliminary Investigation.” Arch Sci. 13, 317–48. DOI 10.1007/s10502–012–9198-x.
Dwyer, Arienne M. 2006. “Ethics and Practicalities of Cooperative Fieldwork and Analysis.” In Essentials of Language Documentation, ed. J. Gippert Nikolaus, P. Himmelmann, and U. Mosel, 31–66. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Jimerson, Randall. 2009. Archives Power: Memory, Accountability and Social Justice. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.
Kalela, Yorma. 2012. Making History: The Historian and Uses of the Past. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kovach, Margaret. 2005. “Emerging from the Margins: Indigenous Methodologies.” In Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and Anti-Oppressive Approaches, ed. Leslie Brown and Susan Strega, 19–36. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
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Massey, Amy, and Ray Kirk. 2015. “Bridging Indigenous and Western Sciences: Research Methodologies for Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine Systems.” SAGE Open,
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Menzies, Charles. 2013. “Standing on the Shore with Saaban: An Anthropological Rapprochement with an Indigenous Intellectual Tradition.” Collaborative Anthropologies 6: 171–99.
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Pandya, Rajul E. 2014. “Community-Driven Research in the Anthropocene.” In Future Earth: Advancing Civic Understanding of the Anthropocene, ed. Diana Dalbotten, Gillian Roehrig, and Patrick Hamilton, 53–66. Geophysical Monograph 203, American Geophysical Union. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Potts, Karen, and Leslie Brown. 2005. “Becoming an Anti-Oppressive Researcher.” In Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous, and Anti-Oppressive Approaches, ed. Leslie Brown and Susan Strega, 255–86. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
Rosenzweig, Roy, and David Thelen, eds. 1998. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ross, Karen. 2017. “Making Empowering Choices: How Methodology Matters for Empowering Research Participants.” Forum Qualitative Social Research 18, no. 3.
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies. Second Edition. London: Zed Books.
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda, Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang, eds.. 2018. Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View. London: Routledge.
Wallerstein, Nina, and Bonnie Duran. 2008. “The Conceptual, Historical and Practical Roots of Community Based Participatory Research and Related Participatory Traditions.” In Community-Based Participatory Research for Health: From Process to Outcomes, ed. M. Minkler and N. Wallerstein, 25–46. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Wolf, Eric. 1982. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: