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Paper short abstract

This paper reflects on the challenges of conducting decolonial research from within universities and INGOs in a settler-colonial context. Drawing on my PhD research in Aotearoa New Zealand, it examines how research ethics, consent, and institutional norms reproduce colonial power.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the methodological tensions of researching coloniality from within the institutions it seeks to critique. Drawing on PhD research with international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) based in Aotearoa New Zealand, a settler-colonial context, it explores how colonial power operates not only through development practice, but through research governance, ethics, and institutional norms.

The research employed a mixed qualitative approach, including surveys, semi-structured interviews, and talanoa — a Pacific relational method of dialogue grounded in collective storytelling and listening. While these methods were intended to support critical, relational engagement, the research process was shaped by university ethics frameworks that required organisational consent prior to individual consent. This procedural ordering positioned INGOs as gatekeepers of participation, constraining relational accountability and limiting who could take part, under what conditions, and with what degree of openness.

More broadly, the research revealed resistance to methodological approaches that challenged dominant academic and sectoral norms, including expectations around neutrality, productivity, time, and acceptable forms of knowledge-making. These constraints highlight the difficulty of undertaking decolonial research while remaining embedded within universities and development organisations structured by colonial and managerial logics.

By foregrounding method as a site of power rather than a neutral technical choice, this paper contributes to debates on decolonising development research and challenging domination by the global North. It argues that intent alone is insufficient, and that greater critical attention must be paid to how institutional systems delimit the possibilities and limits of decolonial inquiry, particularly for researchers studying the sectors they inhabit.