Decolonizing Research Methodologies

The project is entitled, DECOLONIZING RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES: A Research School Programme on empirical data collection, fieldwork relations, ethical challenges, and transnational approaches, is funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) 2022-2025. It aims to support the creation, organization, and the implementation of an interdisciplinary research school that bring together Burkinabe, Malian, Swedish, and Tanzanian researchers and research projects in a common collaborative framework to strengthen conceptual, theoretical, methodological and practical work for decolonizing research methodologies.

​It focuses mainly on qualitative research and societal engagement in the humanities and social sciences, and is geared towards data collection, research relations, ethics, and transnational approaches in the organization and implementation of research and research training.

More specifically, the project aims:

1. to critically assess and transform the ways in which qualitative research is organized and implemented;
2. to strenghten the development of empirically grounded and critical research methodologies;
3. to interrogate fieldwork relations and research ethics; and
4. to promote transnational approaches.

The project is built around qualitative empirical research, and societal engagement through the development of courses (both in situ/in persona, and online), the organization of summer schools in the collaborating countries, regular online seminar series, joint analytical workshops, and collaborative publications. It seeks to foster a critical, and yet practically oriented and relevant, academic culture among PhD students and faculty. 

The partners involved in the project are (see also the list of University/Country Coordinators):

• Forum for Africa Studies at Uppsala University (Coordinator);
• Dept. of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences;
• Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University
• Laboratoire d'études rurales sur l'environnement et développement économique et social, Université Nazi Boni of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso;
• Institut des Sciences Humaines, Bamako, Mali;
• Society and Religion Research Centre, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Ongoing Activities

The programme will be officiallt launched at Uppsala University 26 Sept-12 Oct. round-table, seminars, individual presentations, and joint fieldwork. The draft programme is available here. For more info, contact the coordinator of your University or Programme Coordinator Dr. Oulia Makkonen.

Meanwhile several activities have already been organized.

• On 30 June 2022, Sten Hagberg gave a talk on Décoloniser les méthodologies de recherche au Laboratoire d'études rurales sur l'environnement et le développement économique et social, Nazi Boni University, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.
• On 16 June 2022, Sten Hagberg and Oulia Makkonen gave a hybrid research seminar presenting the programme at Forum for Africa Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden.
• On 11 May 2022, Sten Hagberg gave a seminar presenting the programme at Dept. of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden.