Beyond the Master's Tools?

Decolonizing Knowledge Orders, Research Methods and Teaching

Edited by Daniel Bendix; Franziska Müller and Aram Ziai

This book provides a compendium of strategies for decolonizing global knowledge orders, research methodology and teaching in the social sciences. The volume presents recent work on epistemological critique informed by postcolonial thought, and outlines strategies for actively decolonizing social science methodology and learning/teaching environments that will be of great utility to IR and other academic fields that examine global order. The volume focuses on the decolonization of intellectual history in the social sciences, followed by contributions on social science methodology and lastly more practical suggestions for educational/didactical approaches in academic teaching. The book is not confined to the classical format of research articles but moves beyond such boundaries by bringing in spoken word and interviews with scholar-activists.
Overall this volume enables researchers to practice a reflexive and situated knowledge production more suitable to confronting present-day global predicaments. The perspectives mobilise a constructive critique, but also allow for a reconstruction of methodologies and methods in ways that open up new lenses, new archives of knowledges and reconsider the who, the how and the what of the craft of social science research into global order.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 286 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-78661-359-2 • Hardback • July 2020 • $146.00 • (£112.00)

978-1-78661-358-5 • Paperback • July 2020 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

978-1-78661-360-8 • eBook • July 2020 • $48.50 • (£37.00)

Series: Kilombo: International Relations and Colonial Questions

Subjects: Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Political Science / Civics & Citizenship, Political Science / History & Theory

Beyond the Master's Tools?

Decolonizing Knowledge Orders, Research Methods and Teaching

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

This book provides a compendium of strategies for decolonizing global knowledge orders, research methodology and teaching in the social sciences. The volume presents recent work on epistemological critique informed by postcolonial thought, and outlines strategies for actively decolonizing social science methodology and learning/teaching environments that will be of great utility to IR and other academic fields that examine global order. The volume focuses on the decolonization of intellectual history in the social sciences, followed by contributions on social science methodology and lastly more practical suggestions for educational/didactical approaches in academic teaching. The book is not confined to the classical format of research articles but moves beyond such boundaries by bringing in spoken word and interviews with scholar-activists.
Overall this volume enables researchers to practice a reflexive and situated knowledge production more suitable to confronting present-day global predicaments. The perspectives mobilise a constructive critique, but also allow for a reconstruction of methodologies and methods in ways that open up new lenses, new archives of knowledges and reconsider the who, the how and the what of the craft of social science research into global order.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 286 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-78661-359-2 • Hardback • July 2020 • $146.00 • (£112.00)

978-1-78661-358-5 • Paperback • July 2020 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

978-1-78661-360-8 • eBook • July 2020 • $48.50 • (£37.00)

Series: Kilombo: International Relations and Colonial Questions

Subjects: Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Political Science / Civics & Citizenship, Political Science / History & Theory

Author

Daniel Bendix is Professor of Global Development at the School of Social Sciences at Friedensau Adventist University, Germany.

Franziska Müller is Assistant Professor for Globalization and Climate Governance at the University of Hamburg's Department of Social Sciences.

Aram Ziai holds the Heisenberg Chair for Development and Postcolonial Studies at the Institute of Political Science in Kassel, Germany.

Table of Contents

1. Decolonizing Knowledge Orders, Research Methodology, and the Academia: An Introduction – Aram Ziai, Daniel Bendix and Franziska Müller

Part I: Decolonizing Global Knowledge Orders

2. Undoing the Epistemic Disavowal of the Haitian Revolution: A Contribution to Global Social Thought, Gurminder Bhambra

3. Decolonizing Feminism: Reflections from the Latin American Context, Aida Hernández Castillo

4. Intermezzo I – Knowledge Orders, Gurminder Bhambra, Julia Suárez Krabbe, Robbie Shilliam, Manuela Boatcă, Olivia Rutazibwa, Peo Hansen and Mariam Popal

Part II: Decolonizing Research Methodology

5. Postcolonial Feminist Ethics and Politics of Research Collaborations Across North-South-Divides, Johanna Leinius

6. Community Accountable Scholarship Within a Critical Participatory Action Research Model, Melanie Brazzell

7. “Tell Us Something About Yourself, Too” – Reflections on Collaborative Research as a Tool for a Reflexive Methodology, Miriam Friz Trzeciak

8. Intermezzo II – Methodology, Mariam Popal, Gurminder Bhambra, Manuela Boatcă, Julia Suárez Krabbe, Olivia Rutazibwa, Robbie Shilliam and Maria Eriksson Baaz

Part III: Decolonizing Academia

9. “They Call It 'White Guilt: The Module'”: Reflections on Teaching Postcolonial and Decolonial Geographies, Andrew Davies And Kathy Burrell

10. Race, Class and Gender at German Universities: A Round-Table Discussion, Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Kien Nghi Ha, Jan Hutta, Emily Ngubia Kessé, Mike Laufenberg and Lars Schmitt

11. Decolonizing Development Studies: Pedagogic Reflections, Andrea Cornwall

12. Teaching Post-Development as a Tool for Transformation, Wendy Harcourt

13. Tools Against the Masters: Decolonial Unsettling of the Social Science Classroom, Chandra-Milena Danielzik, Franziska Müller and Daniel Bendix

14. Decolonizing Development Studies: Teaching in Zhengistan, Aram Ziai

15. Intermezzo III – Academia, Robbie Shilliam, Gurminder Bhambra, Peo Hansen, Julia Suárez Krabbe, Olivia Rutazibwa and Mariam Popal

About the Contributors

Reviews

This book examines how academics have used decolonial pedagogies and methods to teach and research development studies as they grapple with colonial modernity’s ruptures and post- development critiques of international relations. Calls for the decolonisation of the ‘stale, pale, and male’ university could be regarded as the prescriptive source of inspiration for this work.... Doctoral students, researchers, and academics in social science working on international relations and development, higher education, and cultural studies will primarily benefit from this book.

— Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education