Paper short abstract:

This paper lays the contours of a decolonial approach to research on social protection with marginalized communities in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. It reflexively engages with the question of whether and how this approach was able to shift power for epistemic justice.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is an analytical reflection on a social protection research carried out by an International NGO with marginalized communities in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. The purpose of this research was to develop an evidence-based approach underpinned by African indigenous knowledge to social protection in fragile contexts which would inform the NGO’s future programming and advocacy work. This paper presents and reflects on the epistemological, methodological and ethical components of this research from a decolonial lens. The research involved the following components: i)a co-design phase with development practitioners located in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia, ii) an approach to literature review which extensively quoted and cited indigenous thinkers directly and generously, iii) the selection of communities was informed by a commitment to justice (In Burkina Faso the communities chosen were internally displaced people fleeing terrorist acts and adverse affects of climate change in their home localities, women accused of witchcraft and street children. In Ethiopia, the communities chosen were pastoral and agro-pastoral communities), iv) usage of participatory data collection methods, v) strategies of ‘reciprocity’ or giving back to the communities. The authors reflexively engage with the question of whether and how this research approach was able to shift power for epistemic justice. Hence, we reflect on whether the research was able to centralize indigenous voices and knowledges of communities and development practitioners from the local context whilst engaging in a process of reflection regarding our own positionality as key members of the research team.

Paper short abstract:

This paper reflects upon the ethical dilemmas that arise in research with communities that are pushed to the periphery. How to honour people's trust in extremely tense environments, how to report on vulnerability and resilience, how to analyse hidden discourses?

Paper long abstract:

In the African Great Lakes region, many communities are confronted with a profound reconfiguration of the space in which they are anchored. The interaction between humans and their natural lifeworld has been fundamentally reconfigured as a result of increased demographic pressure and the impact of climate change. Moreover, agrarian modernisation policies, forest conservation efforts, and ecological protection mechanisms impose new dynamics upon people’s lifeworlds. Many of the communities in question are confronted with profound reconfigurations in their livelihoods, their social tissue, and their interaction with nature.

Over the past twenty years, I have worked with such communities through in-depth qualitative research, both in individual as well as in team research initiatives. Research gave us an insight into people’s layers of vulnerability and resilience, into their hidden discourses and their inventive resistance strategies. At the same time, research confronted us with profound ethical dilemmas to which there are no simple answers. (1) How to gain access to voices in the periphery who are hostile to or affraid of outsiders? (2) How to deal with the hopes of extremely marginalised people in relation to what they think a researcher can do? (3) What to do when our scientific analysis is extremely sensitive and could potentially (even in anonymised forms) be used against vulnerable groups? This paper analyses telling anecdotes and confronts the choices we made to ex-post reflections about what it means to be a researcher.

Paper short abstract:

This paper contributes to discussions on methodological decolonisation by illustrating how local epistemologies can shape methodology. We illustrate how methodological decolonisation can be achieved by fusing relevant elements of local epistemologies and conventional methodologies.

Paper long abstract:

The article “methodological decolonisation and local epistemologies in business ethics research” published by the Journal of Business Ethics argued for methodological decolonisation in business ethics research by illustrating how local epistemologies can shape methodology. The paper regarded arguments founded along neatly divided universalist versus contextualised methodologies as a false dilemma, and instead explored how ubuntu, a sub-Saharan African epistemology, contributes as a complementary epistemology and methodology to interpretivism when conducting business ethics research in sub-Saharan Africa. I present my insights and reflections as a researcher about the complexities of the epistemological, methodological, and ethical challenges of the proposed epistemological contingency approach, outlined in Konadu-Osei, Boros, and Bosch, 2022. The presentation highlights opportunities future research.

Paper short abstract:

Forum-theater performances in local language (wolof, serer) contribute to the emergence of place self-narratives on ecological transition. Following an interactive/ adaptive itinerary, the language of practices helps clarify the meanings of common good, transition, power structures, and governance.

Paper long abstract:

The PhD research carried out at IUAV of Venice (2018-2022) can be considered as a journey in search of multiverse transformative insights from Senegal ecovillages. They do emerge from anti-hegemonic experiences despite the rhetoric of the Senegalese National Program of Transition. A plurality of voices is being heard and perspectives on emerging forms of transition are offered by the most marginal places.

The 'forum theatre' is used as a de-colonial device, as activation practice to ease local participation and interaction. Collective shows on issues of thematic ecological transition are organized by the local theatre company Kaddu Yaraax together with local communities. Dialogues in local languages bring out narratives, perspectives and points of view useful to interpret the local meanings of transition. The 'forum theatre' performances are accompanied by exercises of community (parish) mapping of imaginaries, desires, dreams, fragments of cosmologies along with the daily life of the inhabitants.

The outcomes highlight the co-evolution of multiple endogenous African perspectives, which help motivating the "Africa-World" message. The message is conveyed by the languages with which every niche (eco-village) translates the term ‘ecological transition’, the forms of life in its spatial domain. The research findings recommend that we reflect on the meaning of contemporary ecological challenges, linking the research empirical results with emerging 'African paradigms' in a renewed effort to learn.

Paper short abstract:

An ongoing land occupation of marginalized indigenous people in South Africa shows how land reform, food security, community building and environmental management can be organized from below. However, such an appraisal requires a specific methodological and reflexive approach.

Paper long abstract:

In November 2020, about a dozen activists identifying as Khoisan—South Africa’s unrecognized indigenous people—illegally moved onto a large area of state-owned land near Grabouw in the Western Cape. They argued that “Knoflookskraal” belonged to their ancestors and that establishing a ‘Khoisan village’ was the most effective way to ensure food security and protect the biodiversity in the area. Thousands of people have since joined the ‘reclaim’, which helped stave off eviction, but also created friction with neighboring farmers, local politicians, and government officials. Drawing on data collected during ethnographic fieldwork, I examine how the Khoisan navigate these conflicts, organize everyday life at Knoflokskraal and pursue their long-term goals. Rather than a land ‘invasion’, I argue that Knoflokskraal is better understood as an attempt to carry out land reform ‘from below’; deliberately targeting state-owned land and borne out of frustrations with the lack of affordable housing and with government policies that fail to take into account indigenous knowledge. The mixed response to Knoflokskraal by non-Khoisan stakeholders suggests that the absence of the bureaucratic red tape of state-led land reform does not just create lawlessness, but also leaves room for improvised mutually beneficial settlements. Land reform from below has many pitfalls, but it should be explored more extensively as a potential way of breaking the current impasse in South African land reform. Such an agency-oriented appraisal requires a specific methodological and reflexive approach, which I discuss in relation to a community workshop that I co-organized at Knoflokskraal.