Resisting Piratic Method by Doing Research Otherwise

Abstract

The reconstruction of sociology into connected sociologies works towards a truly global and plural discipline. But if undoing the overrepresentation of European epistemology in sociology requires a deeper engagement with epistemologies of the South or worlds and knowledges otherwise, how can we ensure that such engagements do not simply reproduce colonial forms of appropriation and domination? Here I consider means of resisting extractive, or ‘piratic’ method in sociology research by drawing lessons from recent debates around geopiracy and biopiracy in geography and the life sciences. The core claim of this article is that any decolonial knowledge production must involve a consideration of the political economy of knowledge – its forms of extraction, points of commodification, how it is refined as intellectual property, and how it comes to alienate participating knowers. Against this I suggest a relearning of method in an anti-piratic way as a means of returning our work to the intellectual commons.

Haunting and the knowing and showing of qualitative research

“…The paper also raises the less explored ethical issues associated with the non-visibility of the complex personhood of groups made 'abject' through stigmatising discourses (Tyler, 2013), since reductive social imaginaries of their circumstances can then remain relatively untroubled by research. At the very least, the experience of the film suggests that there is a need to subject institutional ethical processes to broader, but also contextualized, reflection on research relationships (also see Tilley, 2017) and on the potential effects of such processes on the representation of data, including on public debate. In some contexts, it may be that a relatively 'mute' presentation of objects or of victims, as in some of the photographs of injured Palestinians discussed by Ginsburg, fulfils the purpose of supplying visibility or human rights 'witnessing' where recognition of that oppression may be denied.…”

Decolonising the university in 2020

“…68 The commons is somehow seen as a panacea and there is an expectation of the commons as some optimised end point of a better society (even when discussing decolonial processes). 69…”

University Solidarity Management

“…Indeed, the Epistemologies of the South project represents a set of propositions articulated to confront coloniality, in the proposal of a method, transgressive sociologies (absences and emergencies), which symbolically expand knowledge and practices and constitute futures supported by real options (Escobar, 2016). The project reflects a post-colonialist thinking and, therefore, its conduct needs to cultivate a "decolonial" sociological imagination (Savransky, 2017), in the perspective of recognizing that there is no cognitive justice without existential justice and this is marked by the constitution of possible futures with preservation of the intellectual heritage of the peoples of the "Global South" (Tilley, 2017).…”