Towards a postcolonial research ethics in comparative and international education

Tikly, Leon; Bond, Tim

doi:10.1080/03057925.2013.797721

Cited by 60 publications

(43 citation statements)

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“…While the Cold War is over and the "three worlds" no longer exist, the logic of partitioning the world along this epistemological axis perpetuated into the post-Cold War era, reflecting the enduring legacy of Western modernity/coloniality. This axis is also prevalent in the current knowledge hierarchizing scholarship and body-politics of comparative education, materializing in practices that privilege Western epistemologies and humanist research ethical codes (Tikly & Bond 2013), reproduce the hegemonic discourses of 'development' and 'benchmarking' that reinforce the unequal standing of marginalized populations, contribute to their intellectual dependency of non-Western scholars, and put comparative education research at the service of development agencies (Cowen 2006;Samoff 1999;Tikly 2004;Tikly & Bond 2013). Such practices often exclude non-white, non-Western (female) academics from academic societies and editorial boards of field-specific journals (Hickling-Hudson 2007) and disregard alternative epistemologies, while applying distinctively Western-developed theoretical traditions and categories as interpretative frames for empirical cases far removed from the locations where these vantage points were first developed (Takayama 2016).…”

Section: Coloniality Of Knowledge After the Cold Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In comparative education, the initial critique of Western hegemony emerged as a result of decolonization struggles of the global south (Altbach & Kelly 1978), as well as a response to the persisting colonial legacies in education and subsequent international development assistance grounded in Western perspectives (Hickling-Hudson 1989, 2007aCowen 2006;Samoff 1999;Tikly 2004;Tikly and Bond 2013). However, the end of the Cold War made it clear that colonial patterns of power (or coloniality) extend beyond post-colonial administrations, "defin [ing] culture, labor, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production" everywhere (Maldonado-Torres 2007, 243).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Interrupting the Coloniality of Knowledge Production in Comparative Education: Postsocialist and Postcolonial Dialogues after the Cold War

Silova

Millei

Piattoeva

2017

Comparative Education Review

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This article explores the coloniality of knowledge production in comparative education in and about (post)socialist spaces of Southeast/Central Europe and former Soviet Union after the Cold War. We engage in a particular form of decoloniality, or what Walter Mignolo terms delinking. Delinking challenges the "emancipatory project" of modernity and colonial relations and sets out to decolonize knowledge, thus interrupting dominant understandings about the organization of the world, society, and education. We do not propose to replace this epistemology with another or others, but take it as the target of critique in a world where many different views could co-exist on a nonhierarchical basis. Our critique is threefold. First, we engage in rethinking and rewriting the socialist past(s) through new and multiple frames to reveal potential possibilities for imagining multiple post-socialist future(s). Second, we show the relations and the intertwined histories of "different worlds," thus unsettling the established spatial partitions of the world. Third, we examine how coloniality has shaped our own identities as scholars and discuss ways to reclaim our positions as epistemic subjects who have both the legitimacy and capacity to look at and interpret the world from our own origins and lived realities. We believe that this kind of delinking fractures the hegemony of Western-centric knowledge, enabling comparative education to gain a global viewpoint that is more inclusive of different voices. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 held the promise of opening new dialogues between the formerly separated three worlds. However, soon after 1989, this space closed and the possibilities for dialogue became subsumed into broader globalization debates, positioning the post-socialist region of Southeastern/Central Europe and its education systems on a "journey" towards the West and (re)directing knowledge flows from West to East and North to South (Silova 2014). This closure is symptomatic of a well-established tradition in comparative research to use the West as a single yardstick for understanding the world. 1 Ranging from modernization theory to world culture theory to postmodern theory, the discussion of non-Western education systems is often framed as "an aberration to the European 'norm' either in respect to their origins or to the extent to which they demonstrate 'postmodern' characteristics" (Tikly 1999, 617). While offering an interpretation of broad trends associated with globalization processes, the preference for Western-centric theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches (re)produces a familiar yet inevitably one-sided image of the world. At the same time, it homogenizes the multiplicity of non-Western realities, devalues epistemic differences, and overlooks alternative interpretations (Connell 2007; Takayama et al. 2016). We are thus painfully reminded that, in the aftermath of the Cold War, the foundation of modern knowledge production remains both "territorial and imperial" (Mignolo & Tlostanova 2009, 206; se...

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Section: Coloniality Of Knowledge After the Cold Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Interrupting the Coloniality of Knowledge Production in Comparative Education: Postsocialist and Postcolonial Dialogues after the Cold War

Silova

Millei

Piattoeva

2017

Comparative Education Review

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“…The question of criticality is central to comparative and international higher education. As Tikly and Bond (2013) explained, in the context of international education research, criticality is manifested through explicit references to colonialism and by an alignment with postcolonial and decolonial thought. From this perspective, critical research entails not only acknowledging the impact of colonization but, most importantly, providing a critique of how knowledge production and academic standards normalize and reinforce Western oppression and ways of knowing (Stein and Andreotti, 2017).…”

Section: Critical Paradigmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Criticality in international higher education research: a critical discourse analysis of higher education journals

et al. 2018

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“…For example, reflecting on the field at the turn of the twenty-first century in this journal, Crossley (2000) notes the need not only for culturally and contextually sensitive research, but also for research that is critically attentive to its own (re)production of neocolonialism and western world views. Here, postcolonial analyses have made a valuable contribution, as recently demonstrated by Tikly and Bond (2013). The authors use postcolonial critiques of global power relations to suggest a more situated understanding of research 'ethics' in an unequal world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Reflexivity and the politics of knowledge: researchers as ‘brokers’ and ‘translators’ of educational development

Sriprakash

Mukhopadhyay

2015

Comparative Education

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This paper interrogates the ways in which 'reflexivity' has proliferated as a normative methodological discourse in the field of international and comparative education. We argue that the dominant approach to reflexivity foregrounds the standpoints of researchers and their subjects in a way that does not attend to the situated, contingent, and relational dynamics of 'knowing' itself. This too easily bypasses the performative effects of research; how disciplinary ways of knowing (through associated methods and discourses) enact particular realities of the world. Drawing on theoretical devices from actor-network theory, we put forward the perspective that social researchers, through the methods and disciplinary discourses they deploy, are 'brokers' and 'translators' of knowledge. This signifies the ways in which the process of research engages actors, scripts, and performances which produce particular understandings of, and effects on, education and development. The paper illustrates the contribution of this perspective through the case of research on teachers and education reform in India. IntroductionIn this paper, we interrogate the ways in which 'reflexivity' has proliferated as a normative methodological discourse in qualitative social research. In the field of international and comparative education, and the social sciences more broadly, reflexive research has become synonymous with 'good' research practice: it signals the researcher's intent to be sensitive to local contexts and to the representation of research participants. Often this is done through an acknowledgement of how the researcher's own knowledge frames (social positions and theoretical perspectives) relate to the knowledge frames of the 'other' under study. Sometimes, particularly in research that purports to be participatory, emancipatory, or critical, the epistemological standpoints of the researched are privileged over the researchers'. While these intentions are certainly important in orienting us towards ethical research endeavours, we explore the limitations of this kind of 'reflexivity'. We argue that in foregrounding, and even monumentalising, the standpoints of 'knowers' in research (whether the researcher or the researched), such approaches to reflexivity do not attend to the situated, contingent, and relational dynamics of 'knowing' itself. Moreover, these approaches too easily bypass the performative effects of research; how disciplinary ways of knowing (through associated methods and discourses) enact particular realities of the world. In the domain of education development, where policy and research are often clearly entwined, and where the stakes for the marginalised are so high, the ways in which

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Towards a postcolonial research ethics in comparative and international education

Cited by 60 publications

References 40 publications

Interrupting the Coloniality of Knowledge Production in Comparative Education: Postsocialist and Postcolonial Dialogues after the Cold War

Interrupting the Coloniality of Knowledge Production in Comparative Education: Postsocialist and Postcolonial Dialogues after the Cold War

Criticality in international higher education research: a critical discourse analysis of higher education journals

Reflexivity and the politics of knowledge: researchers as ‘brokers’ and ‘translators’ of educational development

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