Paper short abstract:

Researchers who study violent contexts should embrace political reflexivity in their work. This involves a critical examination of politics, positionality and privilege in relation to context, participants, and the political implications of research. Standpoint theory; decolonial methods; fieldwork

Paper long abstract:

Researchers in management and organization studies are increasingly interested in studying phenomena associated with violent contexts. Yet violent contexts are by no means ‘normal’ research settings. More often than not, violent contexts have a history of colonial/imperial violence, and as such, involve deep-rooted inequalities. Researchers seeking to study violent contexts through apolitical, ahistorical lenses risk perpetuating a façade of neutrality by masking the power structures and abuses inherent to violence, which in turn can cause harm in the form of objectification, violence normalization, and silencing voices. To remediate these harms, researchers wanting to study violent contexts should embrace and practice political reflexivity in their work. Political reflexivity compels researchers to continually and critically re-examine their politics, positionality and privilege vis-à-vis the geopolitics of the research context, epistemic privilege of marginalized participants, and broader ethical and political ramifications of their work. As a decolonial research method, political reflexivity can help researchers better situate their research along a continuum of decoloniality that includes complicity with colonial/postcolonial power structures, a hybridity approach that seeks to circumvent the centre in favour of marginalized knowledge, or purposeful work seeking to achieve repatriation/liberation.

Keywords: Decolonial research methods; Feminist standpoint theory; Political reflexivity; Research ethics; Violent contexts