Motstand på kjøkkenet. Refleksjoner om å forske med mennesker

Abstract

The chapter reflects on methodology in research with human beings, using the motion picture Kitchen Stories (2003) as illustration and example. The discussion concerns whether decolonial research strategies can be understood as significant contemporary counter-conducts. As researchers, we are subject to a range of regulations, and we bring in tried and tested methodological tools decisive to planning and executing our research. To a degree, we order our fields and informants within this framework as well. Recently, many researchers have begun to organise their projects with increasing focus on participation from the research subjects, and at times, the occasionally surprising resistance is explicitly discussed. Methodology that is attentive to the subjectivity of the participants, and that attempts to empower them, may be said to highlight counter-conductive practices. Research subjects participate, negotiate, and decide on their own behalf to be more than the “researched”, and these practices are themselves discussed. Subject-embodied and attentively sensing, participating, and sharing, the research may discover and challenge various kinds of counter-conductive voices, bodies, and practices, as well as the spaces they occupy. The chapter is concerned with who is granted the opportunity to participate in the knowledge production, and who is qualified to have relevant knowledge.