We argue that it is necessary for all researchers to engage with understanding the coloniality of research, due to the power vested in us as knowledge producers. Research is sometimes framed as being neutral and “truth-seeking”, and researchers are often taught to be objective and impartial. 

However, we are all embedded in society, and our identities (e.g. nationality, ethnicity, caste, religion, gender, sexual orientation, politics etc.) influence how we see and understand the world, as well as the access and opportunities we gain (this is known as positionality). Here’s a short animated video that explains this concept in research.  

Further, as PhD students based in a UK university, a former major colonial power, we benefit from this association and should be aware of how this privilege arose.

Our positionality can impact our research (without us even realising it!) through the questions that we see as worthy of pursuit, the methods we use, the data we collect, the knowledges we deem worthy of consideration, the way we analyse our results, and the kinds of output that we produce. 

Our research may go on to influence policy, direct technological innovations and products, and shape discourses (i.e. the way knowledge, events, behaviour, and societal relationships are explained and understood, including associated assumptions. E.g. the anti-immigrant discourse as portrayed in some media outlets). Therefore, our research doesn’t just describe the world - it shapes how we and others see the world. Therein lies our power. 

Engaging with these issues may be uncomfortable and unsettling, since it may raise questions of complicity and feelings of guilt. However, we hope readers will take away that our focus is on the coloniality of research processes, and not on shaming individuals. 

With social movements such as “Black Lives Matter” and “Rhodes Must Fall” bringing long-standing issues of colonialism and racism to front page news, the banner of “Decolonising the Curriculum'' has become widely adopted across many universities. However, while the present lack of diversity in HEIs (in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, socio-economic class etc.) is part of colonial legacies, addressing this lack is not the primary purpose of this guide. 

We did not want to use the term “decolonising” or “decolonisation” in naming our guide, because “decolonising” has to be discussed and understood in context-specific means – what does colonialism mean in that particular situation, and thus, what needs to be done to move away from the way coloniality is enacted in that situation?

We felt it would be more productive to focus on providing an understanding of colonialism and coloniality in knowledge production, HEIs and academia in general, and allow scholars to consider what decolonisation might entail for their contexts and fields. 

Nonetheless, we have used the term “decolonising” throughout our guide to broadly mean reckoning with the world colonialism created and with coloniality – see this section on how we understand decolonising and decolonisation in academia.