Unsettling Methodologies/Decolonizing Movements

Authors

  • Craig Fortier University of Waterloo

Keywords:

research methodologies, settler decolonization, social movement research, home and belonging

Abstract

As movements for social justice within settler colonial states like Canada and the United States begin to centralize Indigenous struggles for sovereignty as foundational to liberation, non-Indigenous movement participants are challenged to contend with what it means to decolonize within their respective movements. This article explores the potential to engage in decolonizing research methodologies among non-Indigenous anti-authoritarian activist groups. Based on an ethnographic and qualitative research with activists, this paper highlights three core themes emerging out of an attempt to assert a decolonizing methodological approach to research in non-Indigenous activist communities, including: identity and belonging, accountability and consent, and responsibility and appropriation.

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