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Conference Announcement Theme: Beyond the Master's Tools Subtitle: Post- and Decolonial Approaches to Research Methodology and Methods in the Social Sciences Type: International Conference Institution: Department of Development & Postcolonial Studies and Department of Sociology of Diversity, University of Kassel Location: Kassel (Germany) Date: 14.–15.1.2016 __________________________________________________ The contention that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" (Lorde) translates into a major critique of Social Science research. Accusations regarding the continuation of "epistemicide" (Santos) highlight the dangers of an occidentalist or Eurocentric research agenda. Post- and decolonial perspectives point to colonial continuities embedded not just in the epistemic foundations and thematic concerns, but also in the actual practices, i.e. the craft of research as canonised in research methods and methodologies. A decolonising approach to Social Science research is necessarily twofold: the deconstruction of existing methodologies and methods that (re)produce the coloniality of knowledge; and a reconstruction and/or reinvention of research practice. The conference aims to bring together scholars to discuss methodological and methodical critiques as well as potentially post- /decolonial ways of doing empirical research. Academic knowledge production has become a highly diversified field. Various turns (argumentative, ethnographic, spatial, practice, intersectional etc.) claim to offer epistemological lenses that allow for a more pluralist, contextualized and enriched understanding of the social world. While these developments may point to a desirable 'mainstreaming' of heterodox and critical approaches, we can still observe that the "right to research" (Appadurai) as a universalized hegemony over knowledge production remains the reserve of a minority marked by privileges linked to the history and present of colonialism. "Researching back" (Smith) appears to be a necessary but difficult process. The conference aims to discuss and learn from different approaches that strive to decolonize the field of academic research, i.e. the epistemological conceptualization and selection of research objects and research designs (Mato). The methodological reflection of ongoing entanglements regarding hegemonic power/knowledge complexes leads to the reflection of decolonial methods and research practice. Feminist, anti-racist and decolonial scholars have focused on developing methods for power sensitive research in order to deconstruct what still appears to be a hegemonic and positivist research paradigm by putting forward concepts such as positional reflexivity, standpoint feminism, situated knowledge or critical whiteness. Analyzing everyday life practices or stories in ethno-methodological methods, reflecting on 'writing culture' (Clifford/Marcus) in cultural anthropology, focusing on counter-narratives in biographical research, conceptualizing gaps and silences in discourse analysis or addressing complexity in situational analysis are all approaches that provide useful tools for decolonial research. Furthermore, participatory research methods such as popular education (Freire) or participatory action research (Fals- Borda) open up perspectives for horizontal and collaborative research processes. While university regulations might require researchers to follow formal guidelines for ethical research - for example, participant information sheets, informed consent, and right to withdraw at any moment -, post-/decolonial critique requires a more profound recognition of ethical issues. It urges us to account for the positionality of the researcher in relation to the field, the people investigated, and the "geopolitics of knowledge" (Mignolo) more broadly. Rather than perpetuating the obscuring stories of how we stumbled across field sites "by chance", it is necessary to bring to the forefront the ways in which researchers are "historically and socially [...] linked with the areas we study" (Gupta/Ferguson). First and foremost, a de-/postcolonial research ethics demands that we choose sides and step away from any pretense of neutrality, objectivity, and impartiality - while we still try to to reach an intersubjective understanding of the world. We thus have to ask (and answer) the highly political question of who benefits from our research. Postcolonial research ethics might even go further and say that it is not up to academics to decide on relevance, but that it should be up to the people fighting the decolonial struggles on the ground. It is not an easy feat, but - in spite of itself being predominantly Western, white, male, bourgeois, heterosexual, and able - academic research needs to be "existentially and politically committed to decolonisation" (Decoloniality Europe). Conference Programme Thursday, 14 January 2016 12:00 am Registration 1:30 pm Welcome & Introduction (Ute Clement, Vice President, & Winfried Speitkamp, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences) (tbc) 1:45 pm Opening Address (Aram Ziai & Elisabeth Tuider) 2:15 pm Keynote I “The Decolonial Otherwise As a Cosmopolitan Project” Siba Grovogui, Cornell University (USA) 3:15 pm Coffee Break 3:45 pm Panels 1. Me and the Others - the Researching Subject in Postcolonial Research Panel Chair: Anke Ortlepp “I Wear so Many Hats: Learning to Speak as a Community, Not for Them” Laura Ann Chubb, University of Auckland “For More Feelings of Unease within White Research Practice! A Critical Whiteness Perspective on Postcolonial Research Encounters” Katharina Fritsch, University of Vienna “‘Committing Epistemicide?’ On the Impossibility of Doing Ethnography” Luisa Hoffmann, Goethe University Frankfurt “The Conditions that Make a Difference: Decolonial Historical Realism, the Researcher and the Process of Decolonization” Julia Suárez-Krabbe, Roskilde University 2. De/reconstructing Global Knowledge Orders Panel Chair: Franziska Müller “Derrida and the Hospitality in International Relations” Vjosa Musliu, Ghent University “The Philosophy of Liberation and the Place of Islamic Epistemologies in the Modern Social Sciences and Humanities” Latife Reda, Research Consultant at ILO Beirut “On Epistemic Violence. Agaciro & the Limits of Moving beyond Wilsonian Interventionist Knowledge Production on Rwanda” Olivia Rutazibwa, University of Portsmouth “Africa in Oceania: Thinking besides the Subaltern” Robbie Shilliam, Queen Mary University of London 3. Travelling Normative Concepts Panel Chair: Franziska Dübgen “Should Frankfurt be Decolonized or Provincialized?” Floris Biskamp, University of Kassel “Inventing ‘Modern Chinese People’ via Social Surveys: Practicing Method in China, 1910-1940” Yijin He, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing “Border thinking? Unsettling Basic Concepts of Critical Migration Research and Activism” Aino Korvensyrjä, University of Helsinki "Exploring Ethics and Researching Rights in a Globalized World" Mariam Popal, University of Bayreuth 6:15 pm Break 6:30 pm Lecture Performance “Dismantling the Master's Archive” Laura Digoh, KARFI - Schwarzes Kollektiv für Empowerment und rassismuskritische Bildung Jeanette Ehrmann, Research Institute of Philosophy Hannover Darja Klingenberg, Goethe University Frankfurt 7:15 pm Break 7:30 pm Panel discussion (öffentliches Panel in deutscher Sprache) “Postkolonial forschen in Deutschland – Stand und Hindernisse in den Gesellschaftswissenschaften” Panel Chair: Aram Ziai Manuela Boatcă, University of Freiburg Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen Noa Ha, Technical University of Berlin 8:30 pm Close and walk/transfer to restaurant 9:00 pm Dinner at Arkadaş, Sickingenstr. 10 (not included in conference fee) Friday, 15 January 2016 9:00 am Keynote II “Decolonizing Feminism: Theories and Practices from the Margins” Aida Hernández Castillo, CIESAS (Mexico) 10.00 am Panels 4. Materiality Matters Panel Chair: Daniel Bendix “The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating” – Knowledge Production as Political Praxis in the Context of Transnational Solidarity” Sebastian Garbe, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen “The Imperial Connection: Visualising the Colonial Economy” Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Goldsmiths College London “Silencing the Female Subaltern again? About the Hierarchical Organization of Southern NGOs against Neoliberal Globalization” Christine Löw, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences 5. Transforming Power Relations in Research and Teaching Panel Chair: Pinar Tuzcu “Community Accountable Scholarship within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) Model” Melanie Brazzell, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin “Teaching without the Master’s Tools? Interrogating the Links between Research and Teaching in Creating a Decolonised World” Andrew Davies, University of Liverpool “How the Decolonization of the History of Ideas can be Helpful for the Decolonization of Research on Democracy” Sibylle de la Rosa, University of Heidelberg “Decolonizing Reflexivity in Collaborative Ethnography: A Case Study from an Intercultural University in Mexico“ Gunther Dietz & Laura Selene Mateos Cortés, Universidad Veracruzana Xalapa Enríquez 6. Decolonizing the Interview Panel Chair: Elisabeth Tuider "Decolonizing the Interview: A Futile and Treacherous Pursuit?" Maria Eriksson Baaz, University of Gothenburg "Receiving and Giving in Research Practice. Reflections on Research in Transcultural Spaces” Cornelia Giebeler, University of Bielefeld “Expert Community in Transitional Reform” Tijana Moraca, Sapienza University Rome “Building alliances to post-colonize the interview: Towards feminist activist research” Mirjam Tutzer, Goethe University Frankfurt 12:30 pm Lunch Break 1:30 pm Panels 7. Re-reading the Colonial Archive Panel Chair: Julia Hauser “Constructions of Childhood and Deviance: In Need of a Post-Colonial Turn” Chandni Basu, Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg “Challenging the Domestic Colonial Archive: Towards a Theory from the Italian South” Carmine Conelli, University of Naples “L'Orientale” "Barking Up the Wrong Tree, or Why a Re-reading of the Colonial Archive Should Make Methodological Nationalism One of Our Lesser Worries" Peo Hansen, Linköping University 8. Transdisciplinary & Decolonial? Practicing Participatory Research Panel Chair: Miriam Trzeciak “Doing and Un-Doing Knowledge Production in Migration Studies Decolonizing Methods and Approaches through Participatory-Processes” Katherine Braun, University of Hamburg “Decolonizing Migration Research: Risks and Side Effects of Moving beyond the Confines of Academic Standard” María Teresa Herrera Vivar, Goethe University Frankfurt "Academic Institutional Challenges for a Decolonialization of our Research Practices. Experiences from Collaborative Research with Women's Rights Organizations in Mexico” Anika Meckesheimer, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Mexico City "'We want to be the Protagonists of our own Stories!' Reflections on a Participatory Research Project of Researchers and Domestic Workers in The Netherlands & South Africa” Helen Schwenken, University of Osnabrück 9. Whose Knowledge, whose Agency? Activist Research Panel Chair: Joshua Kwesi Aikins “Suggestions on how to Overcome the Privilege of the Last Word in Research” Mechthild Exo, Freie Universität Berlin “The Black Feminist Movement in the Netherlands” Chandra Frank, Goldsmiths College London “Research in Roma Communities” Charlotte Kühlbrandt, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine “The Ethics and Politics of Doing Research ‘Otherwise’: Reflections on Practicing Participatory Research as Decolonizing Methodology” Johanna Leinius, Goethe University Frankfurt 4:00 pm Coffee Break 4:30 pm Keynote III “Postcolonial and Decolonial Reconstructions: The Difference that Haiti Makes” Gurminder K. Bhambra, University of Warwick (UK) 5:30 pm Spoken Word Performances "A Fanfare for the Colonised" Philipp Khabo Koepsell, Interdisciplinary artist and spoken word performer "Instead of Explanations" Moona Moon, Kanaktivist, poet, performer Farewell (Aram Ziai, & Elisabeth Tuider) 6:15 pm End of conference Organization Department of Development & Postcolonial Studies Prof. Dr. Aram Ziai Department of Sociology of Diversity Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Tuider If you have questions or want further information please do not hesitate to contact us: beyondthemastersto...@uni-kassel.de Conference website: http://www.uni-kassel.de/veranstaltung/beyond-the-masters-tools/ __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
