Summary
Most efforts at advancing research to be more inclusive focus on methods or methodologies or participation. Though helpful, those efforts have unfortunately not been sufficient for inclusion and we continue to be constrained by stronger forces which go to the root of what research means and the definition of inclusion. To be fully unconstrained and reach true inclusion we must learn to let go. Do we have the ability to do that? Let's talk about that. Join us for a half-hour of becoming undone, joyfully.
Key Insights
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Diversity in team composition does not guarantee that research is inclusive or free of systemic bias.
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Awareness-based methods like positionality wheels often lead to paralysis or feelings of powerlessness rather than actionable inclusion.
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Colonial modernist worldviews emphasize objectification and individualism, which shape exclusionary research methodologies.
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Knowledge in many Indigenous cultures, such as the Igbo, is relational and embodied, not objectified.
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Songs and storytelling are integral to ways of knowing and can function as legitimate research methods.
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Systems of value — who defines what is valuable knowledge — are core to whether research is truly inclusive.
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Emancipatory research methods emerge from communities’ own ways of being, not from external imposition of methodologies.
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Community wisdom and positive deviance can reveal solutions without relying on deficit-based research.
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Ways of being including cultural practices brought by immigrant groups can offer valuable inclusion frameworks even in Western cities.
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Researchers must practice letting go of control and positional authority to enable true participatory research as equals in community.
Notable Quotes
"Whiteness isn’t just the color or race; people of all colors can reinforce white supremacy."
"Awareness does not necessarily lead to action; it often makes us feel stuck or powerless."
"Colonial ways of being will never produce emancipatory ways of doing."
"Knowledge emerges in the midst of relationship, not just from objectifying."
"Songs are our way of knowing; you can tell someone's emotional state by the song they sing."
"Systems of value determine whose knowledge we increase and whose knowledge we diminish."
"If you don’t remember anything else, remember that colonial ways of knowing and valuing will never produce liberatory methodologies."
"The skills of research sit equal to and alongside all the talents and gifts of community members."
"We have to move into radical participatory research where researcher is community member."
"Will you learn to let go? Better yet, will you let go?"
Or choose a question:
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