Decolonising Research Methods: ideas on scholarship and epistemic integrity

With the South African decolonial student movement #RhodesMustFall (RMF) at the
University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa pushed its university administration
to rethink inclusivity and institutional racism, calling for a decolonisation of the
curricula. RMF focused on post-apartheid South Africa’s lack of restorative justice,
challenging the logics of coloniality perpetuated in the curricula, as well as financial
constraints impeding access to education. The conversations with RMF activists were
about learning through sharing, requiring a process of self-reflexivity and an open-
endedness to how we approach critical thinking and education. This was particularly
important for considerations of a decolonised self. Thus, a methodology specific to
the conversations was developed and called Agential Reflexive Methodology (ARM),
relying on open notebook conversations (ONC) and video conversations (VC).