Glocalised research design: exploring the encounter between Indigenous and Western methodologies among the Maasai Pastoralists in Monduli, Tanzania

Author(s):  
Joseph Christopher Pesambili

Drawing upon my experience of researching the encounter between Indigenous and Western knowledge among the Maasai in Monduli, Tanzania, I reflect on theoretical and practical aspects of a glocalised research design as an alternative methodological approach to Indigenous research. I explore how the design is embodied in the Maasai’s concept of enkigúɛ́ná (meeting) both as an ontological and epistemological framework for engaging diverse worldviews and knowledge systems in meaningful ways. The experience from the fieldwork shows that not only does the glocalised design offer possibilities for decolonising research and knowledge production but also it provides a dialogical space for co-constructing knowledge between the researcher, research assistants, and participants. The glocalised design offers new insights into the importance of research at the encounter where two knowledge systems constantly in tension, meet, interrogate, and negotiate with each other through a productive dialogue to enhance mutual understanding and create new knowledge.

Author(s):  
Heidi Hardt

Chapter 1 introduces the subject of institutional memory of strategic errors, discusses why it matters for international organizations (IOs) that engage in crisis management and reviews the book’s argument, competing explanations and methodological approach. One strategic error in the mandate or planning of an operation can increase the likelihood of casualties on the battlefield. Knowledge of past errors can help prevent future ones. The chapter explores an empirical puzzle; there remain key differences between how one expects IOs to learn and observed behavior. Moreover, scholars have largely treated institutional memory as a given without explaining how it develops. From relevant scholarship, the chapter identifies limitations of three potential explanations. The chapter then introduces a new argument for how IOs develop institutional memory. Subsequent sections describe research design and explain why NATO is selected as the domain of study. Last, the chapter identifies major contributions to literature and describes the book’s structure.


Author(s):  
Laura J. Shepherd

This chapter outlines the motivation for undertaking the research presented here, and offers an account of the contexts for the peacebuilding-related activities in which the United Nations is involved: Burundi; Central African Republic; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Liberia; and Sierra Leone. The research design is explained, with an overview provided of both the theoretical framework supporting the research and the methodological approach taken. The methodology is a form of discourse analysis engaging both documentary and transcribed interview texts, and this chapter explains how the author uses the concepts of gender and space to structure the analysis in the rest of the book. The chapter also presents an analysis of the literature on peacebuilding to which the author seeks to make a contribution with this research.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003802612110097
Author(s):  
Magali Peyrefitte

Embracing the manifesto for a ‘live’ sociology, I included portraiture into the research design of an ethnographic study into women’s lived experiences of French suburbia and organised an exhibition entitled Habitantes d’Hier and d’Aujourd’hui: exposition sociologique et photographique. This was a personal project in the neighbourhood of my youth and was motivated by the intention to shine some light on the invisible stories of women living in lower-middle and middle-income suburbs in France. In this article, I reflect on the use of portraiture for the possibility it offers in capturing the ethnographic encounter as well as in giving saliency and offering a visual representation of the sociological analysis. I also discuss the exhibition of these portraits as a moment of conviviality grounded in the endeavour of writing differently from hegemonic modes of academic communication and dissemination allowing for a sharing and sharpening of the sociological imagination. It represents an opportunity to think beyond some of the more neoliberal imperatives that govern academia today and shape our sociological craft. I argue for the value of creating a moment of conviviality, that is a space challenging modes of dissemination, engagement and even impact to some extent, as well as modes of knowledge production: broadly opening up more possibilities for a truly public sociology to continue to exist.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 160940692098793
Author(s):  
Darrien Morton ◽  
Kelley Bird-Naytowhow ◽  
Andrew R. Hatala

At the interface of Western and Indigenous research methodologies, this paper revisits the place of the “personal” and “autobiographical” self in qualitative visual research. We outline a community and partnership-based evaluation of a theater program for Indigenous youth using arts-based body-mapping approaches in Saskatoon, Canada, and explore the methodological limitations of the narrator or artist’s voice and representations to translate personal visual-narratives and personal knowledges they hold. In so doing, we describe how body-mapping methods were adapted and improvised to respond to the silent voices and absent bodies within personal visual-narratives with an epistemological eclecticism handling the limitations of voice and meaningfully engaging the potentiality of quietness. Extending the conceptual and methodological boundaries of the “personal” and “autobiographical” for both narrator and interlocutor, artist and observer, we contribute to debates on the processes and outcomes of personal knowledge production by articulating a generative, ethical, and culturally-grounded project mobilizing body-mapping as a quiet method that pursues self-work—the passionate and emergent practices of working on one’s self and making self appear in non-representational and ceremonial ways.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Gone

Within the domain of academic inquiry by Indigenous scholars, it is increasingly common to encounter enthusiasm surrounding Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRMs). IRMs are designated approaches and procedures for conducting research that are said to reflect long-subjugated Indigenous epistemologies (or ways of knowing). A common claim within this nascent movement is that IRMs express logics that are unique and distinctive from academic knowledge production in “Western” university settings, and that IRMs can result in innovative contributions to knowledge if and when they are appreciated in their own right and on their own terms. The purpose of this article is to stimulate exchange and dialogue about the present and future prospects of IRMs relative to university-based academic knowledge production. To that end, I enter a critical voice to an ongoing conversation about these matters that is still taking shape within Indigenous studies circles.


Author(s):  
Maria Isabel Escalona-Fernandez ◽  
Antonio Pulgarin-Guerrero ◽  
Ely Francina Tannuri de Oliveira ◽  
Maria Cláudia Cabrini Gracio

This paper analyses the scientific collaboration network formed by the Brazilian universities that investigate in dentistry area. The constructed network is based on the published documents in the Scopus (Elsevier) database covering a period of 10 (ten) years. It is used social network analysis as the best methodological approach to visualize the capacity for collaboration, dissemination and transmission of new knowledge among universities. Cohesion and density of the collaboration network is analyzed, as well as the centrality of the universities as key-actors and the occurrence of subgroups within the network. Data were analyzed using the software UCINET and NetDraw. The number of documents published by each university was used as an indicator of its scientific production.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith S. Taber

This paper considers the status of educational research that looks to replicate previous findings in a novel educational context, taking as its focus an active area of research in a range of national contexts: studies into students’ ideas about scientific topics. The paper considers the circumstances under which a “replication” study should be considered to offer original new knowledge worthy of publication in international research journals. It is argued here that there are sound principled reasons to expect studies undertaken in different educational contexts to be able to contribute to a progressive research programme, and so researchers should be encouraged to undertake such work. However, technically competent papers submitted to prestigious journals will be rejected if they are considered to merely replicate previous work without offering novel empirical or theoretical content that is considered to make an original contribution. This paper explores the basis for welcoming research “testing-out” published findings in new contexts and considers the place of such studies within a progressive research programme. This analysis can inform research design for those looking to explore learners’ ideas in local educational contexts, by offering clear guidance on the forms of research likely to offer significant contributions to public knowledge.


Author(s):  
Nathan Moyo ◽  
Jairos Gonye

This chapter theorises the politics of knowledge production in order to understand the ways in which Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) could be framed as bases for promoting transformative classroom practices in Zimbabwe. Doing so is necessary as the school curricula of many education systems in postcolonial Africa remain subservient to the Western European epistemology. The trope, transformative uncolonial learning, is employed in order to re-imagine an ethical pedagogy that could result in transformative classroom practices. The argument developed is that history and dance, as implicated in the politics of the black body, could be re-framed as the basis of ethical classroom practices. To achieve this, teachers need to embrace productive pedagogies that promote pluriversality of knowledges as valid and legitimate school knowledge.


Author(s):  
Patricia Lupion Torres ◽  
Rita de Cassia Veiga Marriott

Economic globalisation and technological changes have led to one of the greatest challenges that education faces – the access to permanent education for all segments of society. In this scenario, there is a need for innovative e-learning methodologies that involve students in the construction of knowledge and make use of the technologies now available. In this chapter, we introduce knowledge management in the context of the Online Learning Lab (LOLA), a methodological proposal for collaborative learning. LOLA represents an advance on most e-learning programs as its methodological approach surpasses traditional proposals for knowledge reproduction and stimulates students to become more active, autonomous, responsible and investigative. The activities in LOLA, described below, give rise to ideas, paradoxes, discussions and the formulation of concepts, all leading to the production of new knowledge while involving students in individual and collaborative work.


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