Co-production (of knowledge) as pathway to decolonization of knowledge in the Global South: Perspectives and limits

Abstract

Researching in the Global South challenges researchers to deal with power relations and different knowledge systems, to reflect on them and to develop approaches that does justice to responsible research to claim for a decolonization of knowledge. Based on own research activities in the field of cultural geography in a historically marginalized district of Dakar (Senegal), this paper shows and discusses when in the research process one can speak of decolonization of knowledge and how this can be actively targeted. I question whether the approaches presented can generate a decolonisation of knowledge in the Global South and what preconditions must be met for this to happen. In particular, I focus on the co-production of research that I consider as a pathway to decolonizing knowledge.

The PhD project, investigating the impact of spatial co-production processes on social inequalities, builds on 8 months ethnographic qualitative fieldwork. To avoid a distinction between researcher and research participants that can challenge the separation between those who produce knowledge and those who might either benefit from or be harmed by that knowledge and to advance greater equity participatory research (intended as research co-production) was conducted.

Accordingly, community members had a significant degree of participation during the research process and helped to identify the problems to be studied and determine the major questions of the research. In addition, their local knowledge, personal experiences, feelings, and spiritual expressions feed into the research and were useful ways to generate knowledge that reflects their perspectives, priorities, or concerns.

Given that the fieldwork followed a cyclical process of participant observation, (informal) conversations, reflection, first evaluations, and modification, the participatory research allowed to develop approaches that best fit into their daily practices, their values, their understanding of community problems and gender issues etc.

While a high degree of participation led to a more inclusive knowledge production, some challenges endangered the field research to some extent (e. g., the tendence to gain individual control over the project, gender biases that implicitly shaped the design and execution process in ways that are exclusionary, which then produced misrepresentative data). Thus, a new form of power imbalance was generated among some of the community members. In addition, while participation promises quite a lot, it raises issues of validity and legitimacy, raising methodological challenges of valid representation.

These experiences represent the focus of a deeper reflection and are discussed in the frame of the conference: I consider what conditions must be fulfilled to speak of co-production of research. Finally, I return to the initial question and critically ask to what extent this can contribute to a co-production of knowledge and, in the sense, to a decolonisation of knowledge.