Developing a decolonial gaze: articulating research/er positionality and relationship to colonial power

This article details some of the tensions and complexities of doing research on decolonising higher education. It argues for feminist-informed, reflexive-methodological approaches that are sensitive to power, in particular to the power relations existing in/of settler-colonial social terrains (Tuck & Yang 2012). By reflecting on the methodology of a research project designed to provide insights into an ethical praxis of decolonising higher education, I explore how reflexive approaches engage with questions of research/er and participant epistemological and ontological positioning in relation to colonial power and discourse (Ahmed 2007; Alcoff 2007). My approach resists positivist discourses that uphold Western patriarchal rationalities of an objective, controllable world (Lather 1991). I pay attention to the social construction of knowledge and knowing practices aiming to be perceptive of the social situatedness of both the researcher and the researched. This includes considering the contentions raised by decolonial feminists who have argued that the limitation of ‘White feminism’ (Lazreg 1994) – particularly in the way Whiteness remains unmarked – ‘works to avoid an engagement with [an] Indigenous critical gaze on the white racial subject who constructs and represents the “Other”’ (Moreton-Robinson 2000, p. 181).