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Decolonial Research Methodologies: Resistance and Liberatory Approaches

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The Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South

Abstract

This chapter argues that media and communication research are deeply entrenched in global capitalism and the imperial projects of the Global North. The problem of Eurocentrism and the coloniality of knowledge in media studies does not only negatively impact the projects theory-building in the South, but also methodology as medium through which we interpret the word and the world. The coloniality of knowledge production in the Global South means that the South is not just faced with the problem of epistemicides as genocides of knowledge, but also methodicides as genocides of non-Western ways of knowing. This chapter discusses the need for decolonizing research methodology and methods in order for the Global South to create transformative agency in its research that currently remains neutralized by theoretical mimicry and puppetry. The chapter concludes by a typology of alternate decolonial or resistance research methodologies. These methods, albeit a work in progress, aim not only to resist epistemic colonization in cultural analysis, but also help the Global South to unlearn the Western method.

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Moyo, L. (2020). Decolonial Research Methodologies: Resistance and Liberatory Approaches. In: The Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52832-4_6

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