{"id":132,"date":"2024-06-07T11:59:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T10:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/?p=132"},"modified":"2024-06-21T16:04:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T15:04:16","slug":"interdisciplinary-horizons-and-decolonial-research-in-a-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.york.ac.uk\/igdc\/2024\/06\/07\/interdisciplinary-horizons-and-decolonial-research-in-a-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Interdisciplinary horizons and decolonial research in a digital age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aasim Sheikh<\/a> discusses the IGDC PGR students webinar in February 2024 where they discussed decolonial research in a digital age.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an agenda to promote conviviality within research, post-graduate researchers in Global Development at York have organised a seminar series, Breaking Disciplinary Barriers: Towards Interdisciplinary Horizons. <\/em>Dr Hameed Chughtai<\/a>, senior lecturer from Lancaster University Management School, was invited to present his recent work on \u2018Doing Interdisciplinary Decolonial Research in a Digital Age\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facets of, and evasions from, Decolonial thought<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Different facets of decolonial thought were emphasised throughout the seminar. This included Linda Tuhiwai Smith<\/a>\u2019s idea of decoloniality which focuses on recovering, healing and reclaiming erased knowledges and promoting Indigenous knowledges; and Ol\u00faf\u1eb9\u0301mi O. T\u00e1\u00edw\u00f2<\/a> who differentiates between \u2018decolonisation1\u2019 (political and economic, standing for self-governance and former colonies having their futures under their own direction); and  \u2018decolonisation2\u2019 (epistemological, referring to residual cultural and ideational colonial influence). This latter akin to the decolonial historical epistemic lens proposed in Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni<\/a>\u2019s book chapter, \u2018Rethinking Development<\/a> in the Age of Global Coloniality\u2019. Tuck & Yang<\/a>\u2019s seminal 2012 paper was cited to highlight decolonial evasions, such as the easy adoption of decolonisation \u201cas a metaphor\u201d in universities and scholarly discourses, instead of considering restitution of land and rights and knowledge to the Indigenous population as central aims of any decolonisation project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White Gaze in policy research tools and generative artificial intelligence<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While qualitative researchers are trained to \u2018see things\u2019, Linda Tuhwai Smith<\/a> suggests they must be wary of what bell hooks<\/a> refers to as the \u2018white gaze\u2019, or interpreting an oppressed situation from the view of the oppressor. This can be especially pertinent in terms of policy decisions. Policy tools carry traces of values, which sometimes exude colonialism, racist ideology, or unconscious biases. They may be used by academics and policymakers of oppressed populations, exacerbating injustices. Chughtai drew on the example of the water shut-off<\/a> policy decisions in the US during the Covid-19 pandemic to illustrate this issue. Water shut-offs for defaults on utility bills were still imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic in low-income communities in fifteen Republican States in the US. This situation owed itself to policy positions that did not consider the conditions and concerns of those communities. Reflecting on Dell et al<\/a>.\u2019s study of marginalised people\u2019s preferential responses to the use of digital artefacts provided by foreign researchers, it was apparent that the \u2018white gaze\u2019 is a problem not exclusive to Western white researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding more modern digital tools such as generative artificial intelligence (AI), Chughtai discussed his concerns over their misuse by students and professionals who may not account for the complexity of qualitative data and the limitations of using AI to analyse qualitative data. This includes racial biases in these tools, developed through centuries worth of innovations. According to Davison et al<\/a>., \u201cgenerative-AI based analysis can contribute to the colonisation or marginalisation of other modes of knowledge, cultures, or values, by privileging a certain perspective on the data analysis process.\u201d As the discussion of Tanizaki\u2019s In Praise of Shadows<\/a> (1933) illustrates, this is not a new problem. Tanizaki suggests that, if the pen had been invented in Ancient Japan, it would have had different characteristics and been accompanied by a distinct type of paper, reflecting the needs of those writing in Japanese script – and so promoting contemporary Japanese thoughts over those set down in Roman Script. This insight extends to understanding underlying values in technology \u2013 Stroustrup<\/a> (1994) for example alludes to his decisions in designing C++, an object oriented computer programming language, rooted in Kierkegaard\u2019s passionate concern for individual decision-making autonomy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A potential interdisciplinary agenda<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chughtai put forward his perspective on a potential interdisciplinary agenda for researchers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n