TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating best practice
T2 - Doctoral fieldwork experiences with and without indigenous communities in settler-colonial societies
AU - Weir, Jessica K.
AU - Woelfle-Erskine, Cleo
AU - Fuller, Sharon
AU - Diver, Sibyl
AU - Higgins, Margot
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Okanagan University College.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Through the sharing of personal commentaries about our doctoral fieldwork experiences, this paper contributes to decolonial literatures about academic knowledge generation in settler-colonial societies. The commentaries each illustrate shifting understandings of our roles in perpetuating the colonial knowledge-violence and material power of the academy, and our personal ethics to do something useful in response. Such experiences are often unreported or under reported for diverse reasons. Seeking to address injustice, and to move away from extractive research relationships, we highlight four matters: consent and risk; the resource gap in research collaborations; the consequences of not collaborating with Indigenous people; and, the importance of examining knowledge frames. As constrained and compromised as it is, we argue the doctoral experience is an important opportunity for decolonising the academy. Whilst we appreciate that this paper does not address the material circumstances that perpetuate colonial privilege, we go beyond descriptive reflection to offer prescriptions for change.
AB - Through the sharing of personal commentaries about our doctoral fieldwork experiences, this paper contributes to decolonial literatures about academic knowledge generation in settler-colonial societies. The commentaries each illustrate shifting understandings of our roles in perpetuating the colonial knowledge-violence and material power of the academy, and our personal ethics to do something useful in response. Such experiences are often unreported or under reported for diverse reasons. Seeking to address injustice, and to move away from extractive research relationships, we highlight four matters: consent and risk; the resource gap in research collaborations; the consequences of not collaborating with Indigenous people; and, the importance of examining knowledge frames. As constrained and compromised as it is, we argue the doctoral experience is an important opportunity for decolonising the academy. Whilst we appreciate that this paper does not address the material circumstances that perpetuate colonial privilege, we go beyond descriptive reflection to offer prescriptions for change.
KW - Decolonizing research
KW - Environmental governance
KW - First peoples
KW - More-than-human
KW - Natural resources
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086095775&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
SN - 1492-9732
VL - 18
SP - 1300
EP - 1320
JO - ACME
JF - ACME
IS - 6
ER -