Decolonizing Interpretive Research: A Subaltern Methodology for Social Change

155 Pages·2019·4.227 MB·English

by  Antonia Darder

Amongst the long-needed intersection between education and decolonization, this
book offers thatrare mix of theory intertwined with action.Dardermakes clear that
to decolonize can happen in myriad ways, but not without intention, connection,
and a stance of learning.
Professor Leigh Patel, Associate Dean for Equity and Justice,
School of Education, University of Pittsburgh
Decolonizing Interpretive Research audaciously brings to the fore subaltern voices that
not only interrogate so-called objective lenses used to research ‘the other,’ but also
offers emancipatory, humanistic, and organic ways in which the oppressed can
documentand tell their stories. This is acutting-edge book that challenges western
research orthodoxies while transcending disciplinary boundaries.
Professor Pierre W. Orelus, Associate Professor and Department
Chair, School of Education, Fairfield University
Decolonizing Interpretive Research: A Subaltern Methodology for Social Change brings the
literature of critical, anti-colonial, postcolonial studies to bear on the process and
methods of research in a manner that enacts scholarly production as social action.
Antonia Darder – as teacher – foregrounds the work of her students, dismantling
the hierarchies of voice and power. Together they engage research as a communal
process,workingas‘revolutionarypartners’pushingthroughandagainstestablished
limits of how research is defined. The dissident voices of the students peel back
layers of the colonial matrix with each chapter; their words flowing as affirmations
of social change in the making.
Professor Sandy Grande, Chair of the Education
Department, Connecticut College

DECOLONIZING INTERPRETIVE
RESEARCH
To what extent do Western political and economic interests distort perceptions
and affect the Western production of research about the other? The concept of
‘colonializing epistemologies’ describes how knowledges outside the Western
purview are often not only rendered invisible but either absorbed or destroyed.
Decolonizing Interpretive Research outlines a form of oppositional study that
undertakes a critical analysis of bodies of knowledge in any field that engages with
issues related to the lives and survival of those deemed as other. It focuses on
creating intellectual spaces that will facilitate new readings of the world and lead
toward change, both in theory and practice. The book begins by conceptualizing
the various aspects of the decolonizing interpretive research approach for the
reader, and the following six chapters each focus on one of these issues, grounded
in a specific decolonizing interpretive study.
With a foreword by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, this book will allow readers to not
only engage with the conceptual framework of this decolonizing methodology but
will also give them access to examples of how the methodology has informed
decolonizing interpretive studies in practice.
AntoniaDarderholdstheLeaveyEndowedChairofEthicsandMoralLeadershipat
LoyolaMarymountUniversityandisDistinguishedVisitingFacultyattheUniversity
ofJohannesburg.Shehaspublishednumerousbooksandherworkfocusesonpolitical
questionsandethicalconcernslinkedtoracism,classinequalities,languagerights,cri-
tical pedagogy, cultural studies, and Latino education. More recently, her work has
soughttocontendwithpedagogicalquestionsofthebodyandthepersistentimpactof
colonialityoncommunityleadershipandempowerment.

DECOLONIZING
INTERPRETIVE
RESEARCH
A Subaltern Methodology for
Social Change
Edited by Antonia Darder
Firstpublished2019
byRoutledge
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Darder,Antonia,editor.
Title:Decolonizinginterpretiveresearch:asubalternmethodologyforsocial
change/editedbyAntoniaDarder.
Description:Abingdon,Oxon;NewYork,NY:Routledge,2019.|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2019004032|ISBN9781138486607(hardback)|
ISBN9781138486614(pbk.)|ISBN9781351045070(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Criticalpedagogy.|Knowledge,Theoryof.|
Education--Research.|Socialchange.
Classification:LCCLC196.D432019|DDC121--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2019004032
ISBN:978-1-138-48660-7(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-48661-4(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-351-04507-0(ebk)
TypesetinBembo
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
CONTENTS
List of contributors ix
Foreword by Linda Tuhiwai Smith xi
Preface xiv
PARTI
The conceptual foundation 1
1 Decolonizing interpretive research 3
Antonia Darder
PARTII
Decolonizing principles 37
2 Centering the subaltern voice 39
Kortney Hernandez
3 Naming the politics of coloniality 51
Emily Estioco Bautista
4 Demythologizing hegemonic beliefs 72
Kenzo Bergeron
5 Epistemological disruptions 83
Bibinaz Pirayesh
viii Contents
6 Emancipatory re-readings 104
Terrelle Billy Sales
Afterword: Justice against epistemicides: decolonizing
interpretive research as reiteration of itinerant praxis 116
João Paraskeva
Index 132
CONTRIBUTORS
Emily Estioco Bautista holdsanEd.D.inEducationalLeadershipforSocialJustice
fromLoyolaMarymountUniversity.Sheisaformerhighschoolsocialstudiesteacher
and the current Director of Curriculum and Instruction for Transformation and
Assistant Principal at YouthBuild Charter School of California. She is a founding
member of the People’s Education Movement based in Los Angeles. As a scholar
activist,herscholarshipisinformedbyherpersonalexperienceasastudentleaderand
organizer, as she applies critical, decolonizing, and healing justice lenses to explore,
engage, and create transformative possibilities in intergenerational organizing and
youthmovements.
Kenzo Bergeron holds an Ed.D. in Education Leadership for Social Justice from
Loyola Marymount University. Currently, he is the lead mathematics specialist at
VillageSchool,California.Bergeron’sresearchexplorestheintersectionofpsychology
and education as they work to negatively impact subaltern populations. He is the
author of Challengingthe CultofSelf-Esteem inEducation: Education, Psychology, and the
SubalternSelf.
Antonia Darder, born in Puerto Rico, is a distinguished international critical
educational scholar. She is a public intellectual, educator, writer, activist, and artist.
Darder holds the Leavey Presidential Endowed Chair of Ethics and Moral Lea-
dership at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles; is Distinguished Visiting
Professor of Education at the University of Johannesburg; and is Professor Emerita
of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois
Urbana Champaign. She is an American Educational Research Association Fellow
and recipient of the AERA Scholars of Color Lifetime Contribution Award. She is
the author of numerous books and articles in the field, including Culture and Power
in the Classroom (20th anniversary edition), Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of