Multiple methodologies: using community-based participatory research and decolonizing methodologies in Kenya

Abstract

In this project, we examined the development of a sustainable inclusive education system in western Kenya by combining community-based participatory research (CBPR) and decolonizing methodologies. Through three cycles of qualitative interviews with stakeholders in inclusive education, participants explained what they saw as foundational components of how to create more inclusive primary school classrooms utilizing existing school and community resources. The combination of CBPR and decolonizing methodologies, along with other project factors ultimately led to more inclusive placements for primary students with disabilities. We highlight this increase enrollment of students with disabilities in primary schools with excerpts from qualitative interviews with participants. In addition to the increase of the number of students with disabilities accessing schools for the first time, we found many methodological tensions inherent in this research. Such challenges included: researcher positionality, researcher outsider status, decolonizing approaches to language, and disseminating results in meaningful, ethical, and culturally appropriate ways. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Decolonizing Cultural Probes in Ethnographic Research: Perspective of African Scholars

“…The post-colonial theory posits that postcolonial populations are usually "individuals without an anchor," and, therefore, cannot return to their pre-colonial roots (Fanon, 1963). This theory takes colonialism as a phenomenon that perpetuates oppression driven normally by two vectors categorized by Hall (1999) as "the vector of similarity and continuity that usually connects current practices in the educational systems (for instance, Africa with colonial experience) (Elder and Odoyo, 2018). In like manner, the vector of difference and rupture dislocates the social and education systems onto what is known as a different trajectory that is inherently different but simultaneously influenced by the first vector" (Elder & Odoyo, 2018).…”

“…This theory takes colonialism as a phenomenon that perpetuates oppression driven normally by two vectors categorized by Hall (1999) as "the vector of similarity and continuity that usually connects current practices in the educational systems (for instance, Africa with colonial experience) (Elder and Odoyo, 2018). In like manner, the vector of difference and rupture dislocates the social and education systems onto what is known as a different trajectory that is inherently different but simultaneously influenced by the first vector" (Elder & Odoyo, 2018). Therefore, as the nation or continent arrives at the point of rupture, there is a tendency to create some tension between the past and the present experiences and realities.…”

“…These theories were formulated and marketed by researchers in the global North. African scholars have adopted their theoretical framework without interrogating the contextual values and applications (Elder & Odoyo, 2018).…”

“…For observation, as a tool of research, in sensitive settings such as is common in many Africa communities may frequently be perceived as suspicious, intrusive, disruptive, inappropriate, and typical of the master-servant relationships which Africans have been subjected to in the past. It must be for this same reason that Elder and Odoyo (2018) have suggested that ethnographic researchers interested in African issues should appropriately evolve methodologies based on community-based participatory and decolonizing research with a distinct academic spirit. This distinct academic spirit should be one that can shift the construction of Africa as one of the "poorest" continents always in need of aids from the global North.…”

Researching Otherwise? Autoethnographic Notes on the 2013 Stockholm Riots

“…This body of scholarship, which is often engaged in exploring or magnifying marginalized voices (Fine, 2006;Krumer-Nevo, 2009), also includes a more explicit activist-scholar approach that places political conviction as starting point for social movement studies (Guajardo et al, 2017;Gutierrez and Lipman, 2016;Jeppesen and Sartoretto, 2020). In a similar vein, and much inspired by Paolo Freire (2005), lies the branches of community-based and participatory research (Cross et al, 2014;Hacker, 2017;Murphy, 2014), approaches that emphasize community power and ownership in the process of knowledge production between academia and other communities (Elder and Odoyo, 2018;Museus, 2020) -research endeavours that also have been integral to feminist methodologies (Jagger, 2013;Lykes and Hershberg, 2012;Maguire, 1987).…”