Keywords

Introduction

It is important to note that some of the terms I use throughout the chapter are deliberately chosen to facilitate understanding. Eurocentric/Western is referred to the dominant socio-economic, political and cultural characteristics of Euro-American ideologies, while Southern and Indigenous refer to the grouping of (some) countries which tend to be labelled as ‘postcolonial’ and are characterised by political and cultural marginalisation. I use I and we throughout the chapter. While the I refers to my authorial voice, the we, us, and our refers to the community of learning within and beyond university, and this includes (but not limited to): scholars, academics, educators, students, policy makers, etc. Global Majority is used instead of BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) because those seen as ethnic minorities currently represent around 80% of the world’s population which makes us the Global Majority. Reflexivity is a critical exercise and a methodological tool which invites us to introspectively reflect on our positionality, privilege, power, bias, and taken-for-granted assumptions of education practice. This can enable the ruptions of meaningful and purposeful changes within our respective spaces, including the framing and emergence of educational futures.

Prior to writing this chapter, my ideas about educational futures, creativity and decolonisation were fragmented. My initial engagement with the concept of decolonisation goes back to the scholarship of the Indigenous Māori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021), who has written extensively on the topic in the context of research within Indigenous communities. She argues that research is conflated with the legacies of European colonialism and imperialist projects; therefore, it is essential to decolonise research methods to reclaim Indigenous ways of knowing and being in the academy. In fact, I have noticed during my previous degrees both in Algeria and the UK that research methods curricula (since it is the focus of this chapter) were grounded in Eurocentrism—despite the racialised diversity of the student body in the classroom, especially in the UK. Although Smith takes an Indigenous Māori standpoint to discuss decolonisation in the context of New Zealand, the scholarships of Osberg (2010) and Facer (2013, 2021) expanded my thinking to include ideas about creativity and educational futures, and seek a common connector between these three concepts.

When I think of creativity, I understand it in this chapter as innovative orientations which exist outside our dominant Western ideologies, traditional thoughts, linear models, imagination and discourse of education. It is a process of decolonising the mind which involves questioning the taken-for-granted beliefs—usually influenced by a Euro-American framing (Mignolo, 2007). It is also the prospects for (re)imagining what teaching, curriculum development, pedagogy and research may look like in the future. As Zamana (2022) states, ‘creativity is among the most critical capabilities to build the future’ (p. 1). In fact, the future is not neutral; it is a ‘dynamic and emergent reality’ (Facer, 2013, p. 5) which is developed out of ideas, historical forces, assumptions and barriers of the present. Therefore, it is shaped by our contemporary struggles, hopes and actions. In the opening of the book, the authors have highlighted an array of challenges which include the social, environmental, economic and political issues which have led to exclusion, the emergence of racial order and social injustice (Adekoya, 2023). In the context of HE, curriculum development and the politics of knowledge, it is believed that coloniality, which is defined as a complex matrix of power ensued from colonial legacies, and controlled by the Western institutions (Mignolo, 2007), ‘continues to impact how academia is experienced, as well as what is researched, published, cited and taught’ (Moosavi, 2020, p. 1). This is where decolonisation can be used as a creative methodological tool to challenge the status quo of education and respond to these cracks. To understand the concept of decolonisation here, I draw on Hoopers and Richards’ (2012) explanation, who consider decolonisation as an ethical response to the colonial projects which consist of the colonisation of space and body and the colonisation of the mind through disciplines, such as education. Because of the nature of this chapter, I am more interested in the latter. Furthermore, it is worth noting that I am not really interested in what decolonisation is but in what it could serve and become. This process of becoming requires a set of individual and collective commitment to dialogue, active listening, accountability, reflexivity and collaboration (Abegglen et al., 2023; Facer, 2021; Moosavi, 2022) which I will refer to throughout this chapter.

Taking care of the future is such a huge task to think about, but what are the tools, terms, knowledges and frameworks that we need to imagine the future of education? This book invites us to pay attention to two other important concepts: care and ethics. Although these terms are not fixed, it is also important to define them. Care and ethics are interlinked in this chapter. Thinking of the future of education through a decolonising lens is in fact a process which may require us to embrace care, empathy and ethics of responsibility. In fact, one of the key aspects of decolonisation is to examine power. This is because critical education scholars claim that education and knowledge are not neutral as they are loaded with power; consequently, this can create power imbalances within and beyond classrooms (between teachers and students, student and other students, researcher and participants, and what knowledge is centred/left out) (Pennycook, 2021; Tisdell, 1993). They further argue that education has also failed to address cultural and social inequality (Apple, 2009; Giroux, 2004). So, Jonas (1984) explains that the possibility of ethics happens when one with more power acts in the interests of others with less power. This is important to consider because HE is characterised by competitiveness and hierarchy (Abegglen et al., 2023), and oppression and exclusion (Alexander & Arday, 2015; Ashe & Nazroo, 2016). So, thinking about educational futures requires reflecting on how power operates and creates imbalances within education spaces. Osberg (2010) invites us to consider the being in relation to power and the future of education: who are we including and excluding to imagine the future? Facer (2021) encourages us to consider the knowing and reflect on what and whose knowledges are being used to create ideas of these futures. If we truly care about the future, are we willing to democratise power? Osberg (2010) states that, ‘caring for the future is an important form of human agency’ (p. 163), and I shall also add that it is a form of resistance to avoid reproducing existing current power and oppressive structures of HE and imagine a socially just future for education. So, whenever I am using the terms care and ethics, they entail morality and resistance towards the status quo of education which tends to favour neoliberalist and capitalist attitudes (Gibbs & Coffey, 2004). However, in line with Osberg’s (2010) suggestion, I keep in mind to engage with these terms openly rather than in instrumental and teleological ways. This should allow new emergences, orientations and knowledges to develop and shape the trajectories of decolonisation and the future creatively and ethically—without colonising it.

The perpetuation of colonial legacies has created a set of global and social hierarchies which have led us to accept and normalise that Western ways of knowing and being are superior and more valid than Southern and Indigenous knowledges. This has resulted in creating and upholding systems of oppression, exclusion and inequality which have had an impact on the Global Majority community in educational spaces (Pyke, 2010). This inequality and injustice are part of the twenty-first-century challenges which have received more attention following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the rise of Black Lives Matter (BLM). This is why many universities and schools in the UK are trying to address these challenges in educational spaces to create inclusive pedagogies and antiracist policies (Walker et al., 2023). As stated earlier, this chapter will specifically focus on decolonising the curriculum in the context of educational research methods. Based on my experience as a former MA and doctoral student as well as my research and education career, the practices of research within and beyond Western institutions are still dominated by Eurocentrism which have privileged paradigms, ethics, methodologies and methods of Western theorists, institutions, scholarship and contexts at the expense of Southern and Indigenous methodologies (Chilisa, 2012; Smith, 2021; Kovach, 2021; Wilson, 2008). Therefore, as I have alluded to earlier, this chapter will demonstrate resistance to the status quo of education and taken-for-granted ideas, knowledges and practices in HE. Firstly, I share a reflexive account of my education and research journey grounded in Eurocentrism as the only way to see and understand the world. This has consequently led to colonisation of my mind. In addition, I further discuss decolonisation in the context of research practice and what this may all mean for educational futures. I will support the discussion using my lived experience and, most importantly, my doctoral research which explored research methodology teaching and learning and students’ experiences of writing (MA) dissertations in the fields of education at a single university in Algeria. I also offer a radical and creative alternative to traditional educational models of teaching and learning about research methods using decolonisation to interrogate ‘the dominant power/knowledge matrix in educational practices in higher education’ (Morreira et al., 2020, p. 2). In fact, I call for the importance of decolonising the curriculum (DtC) given the international diversity of students we have in certain HE contexts like the UK. I also provide some practical steps to begin to think of what a decolonising curriculum may look like. The aim here is to invite readers to explore what decolonising the mind may mean and look like using their own positionality, challenges and teaching contexts to address epistemic violence, injustice and inequality of the past and present so one can avoid carrying them into the future, and develop ‘education healing futures’ (Facer, 2021).

Research Methods: A Personal Journey of (De)colonisation

In this section, I explicitly state the positionality I am writing and researching from. Positionality refers to our worldviews and beliefs about the nature of social reality and knowledge, and how we relate and interact with our world (Darwin Holmes, 2020). Stating and reflecting on our positionality involves looking at our racialised identities, power and privileges. These elements of our positionality shape our teaching, research and work—and eventually how we carry our ideas, assumptions and interests into the future.

I am Indigenous Kabyle originally from a small village called Ath Yenni (Tifinagh reference: ) located in Tizi-Ouzou in the Northeast of Algeria. The village is the birthplace of my ancestors and my grandparents who moved and traveled across the Northern part of Algeria for financial reasons. However, I was born in a small city in the state of Relizane. My city is small although it is expanding nowadays. I went to primary and secondary schools with friends who have now become teachers, doctors, parents, etc. I went to university in Mostaganem where I did a BA in English and MA in Applied Linguistics. I grew up with a (post)colonial mindset—even though I am still in the process of unlearning colonial attitudes and ideologies. I believed that Western ways of knowing and being were universal, more valuable, superior and valid across all aspects of life including education. As a result, this has somehow detached me from my cultural and linguistic heritage, and Indigenousness/Algerianness altogether. After I graduated from university, I pursued an MSc in educational research and a PhD in education in the UK. I also came to the UK with a colonial mindset thinking that the Western education is more worthwhile. So, I was excited to receive the right education in order to assimilate, fit in, and be validated wherever I go. In fact, I wanted to be white adopting white norms, values and ways of knowing (Ortega, 2021).

During my MSc, I studied four modules which introduced me to different approaches, methodologies and paradigms of educational research. Although I found the modules insightful, they were Eurocentric in nature, meaning that research methods were taught using examples based on Eurocentric perspectives, contexts, theories and methodological frameworks. Having a colonial mindset at that time, I believed that these research methods paradigms were universal, valid and objective. I did not have the language nor the critical and analytical-reflexive approach (Begoray & Banister, 2010) to reflect on the knowledge and curriculum, and their implications on Southern and Indigenous contexts, especially that we were a racially and ethnically diverse group of students taking these modules.

When I started my PhD, I came across the concept of decolonisation which I had never studied before. The scholarships of Indigenous activist-academicians such as Chilisa (2012), Smith (2021) or Wilson (2008) have enabled me to decolonise my mind. In fact, this has prompted me to raise important questions which I invite the readers to reflect on:

  1. 1.

    How may we envisage the emergence of educational futures through a decolonising lens to repair past injustice and inequality?

  2. 2.

    How can we centre care and ethics of responsibility to shape the emergence of educational futures?

  3. 3.

    And how can decolonisation be used as a creative approach to reimagine research methods curriculum in education otherwise?

Although there is no right answer to these questions, the latter can be used as prompts to help us think further about decolonisation as a process of becoming and creativity, and its link to educational futures.

Decolonising Education and Research

In this section it is important to further define decolonisation in the context of this chapter although I am not seeking to establish a universal definition here. However, drawing from some helpful definitions can enable us to use the language of decolonisation and begin to think of ways the concept can be used as a creative approach to challenge the domination of Eurocentric knowledges in education and create equitable relations that challenge the binary of researcher-participant or teacher-student—and eventually frame the emergence of educational futures.

The racism, Western hegemony, discrimination and internalised inferiority of Global Majority communities is the result of colonisation which has created a set of global hierarchies. The latter has romanticised the white, Christian, heterosexual, middle-class men. In fact, this was identified by Grosfoguel’s (2011) 15 ‘entangled, global hierarchies’ which brings to our attention how, for example, European people have been privileged over non-European people or how Western knowledge has been privileged over non-Western knowledge. Therefore, the European mode of education was claimed to be universal mostly through settler and colonial projects (Wilder, 2013). In addition, Grosfoguel (2011) explains how the global hierarchies have been accepted, normalised and institutionalised within university structures. The dominance of the Eurocentric nature of education limits which and whose knowledges, beliefs and experiences matter, and are worthy of study. Such exclusion significantly narrows new realities of educational futures to emerge. This is why many decolonial and anti-racist voices in the social sciences have called for a resistance to the Eurocentric nature of education, white supremacy and power structures of HE (Chilisa & Ntseane, 2010; Moosavi, 2020; Smith, 2021), which this chapter addresses, too.

In the context of decolonising research, I have explained, through my lived experience, how learning about research in both Algeria and the UK were Eurocentric in nature, and often HE institutions expect research outputs to reflect Eurocentric ways of knowing and being. Decolonisation is a multi-faceted concept which can be theorised and enacted differently. However, I draw from the following definitions presented by some decolonial scholars such as Chilisa (2012) who explains that decolonisation involves centring the concerns and worldviews of the colonised, and thus redefines where power is situated to theorise, signify and understand themselves through their worldviews. Kovach (2021) and Tuck and Yang (2012) invite us to engage with decolonising research through reflecting and recognising the colonial and imperialist influences in research paradigms, disciplines and knowledge production, and recognise how Indigenous and Southern ways of knowing and being have been suppressed within the academy.

As a result, many ethically and culturally responsive methodologies have been developed in the last two decades or so to better suit the needs and cultural beliefs of historically marginalised communities being studied and empower them, including researchers themselves (e.g., Lavallée, 2009; Seehawer, 2018). Using decolonising research approaches allow researchers to become critically reflexive of their positionality and privileges, and reflect on the intersection of power and coloniality in research. It is also important to note that my stance does not reject mainstream and dominant research paradigms in the social sciences (i.e., positivism or interpretivism), but I argue here that research is not an objective and neutral space; it is in fact loaded with power or even exploitation which are not often discussed with students during research methods classes.

In the traditional teaching class of research methods, research is often taught as a systematic process; meaning how a research question is formulated, how a methodological and ethical plan is designed, and how data is collected, analysed, interpreted, discussed and published. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is important to discuss how conventional ways of research practices which we know can lead to inequality, exploitation, displacement, loss of cultural practices and other local damages to historically oppressed and underrepresented communities (Battiste, 2000). In fact, Lincoln (1995) states that the research practices of going to a community, extracting data and leaving when the researchers feel like it has been problematic for many under-represented communities which have been treated as objects of studies for many decades and have been impacted by the exploitation of the Western hegemony. Therefore, decolonising research is a process which can help the researcher to understand the historical developments of research practices and how they may have impacted Global Majority, Indigenous and Southern communities. It also aims at developing community-based approaches for liberation and empowerment (Tuck & Yang, 2014). Decolonisation offers a bridge between Western and Southern/Indigenous ways of knowing and being to (re)define the meaning of research as well as recognise the legacies of colonial and imperialist ideologies and the domination of Western research trainings in the academy (Datta, 2017).

Decolonisation played an important part in shaping my doctoral research which received ethical clearance from my institution to conduct it. In the study, I worked with Algerian students and university lecturers to explore their experiences of teaching and learning about research methods and writing education dissertations at a single Algerian university. Based on the earlier definitions of decolonisation, the doctoral study was based on relationality and relational accountability, meaning that knowledge was produced through a set of relationships. Such relationality is deeply rooted in the cultural symbolism of the Algerian society which I wanted to forefront. Goduka (2000) explains how the I vs. we in African communities is strongly intertwined. The scholar states, ‘I am we; I am because we are; we are because I am, I am in you, you are in me’ (as cited in, Chilisa, 2012, p. 109). The research project sought to disrupt normalised and conventional ways of doing research which may have been unethical or locally challenged in the Algerian context. To illustrate, conventional interview practices are taken suspiciously in Algeria (Mennai, 2020). We do not really do interviews, we simply have discussions and talks, and many other Southern and Indigenous scholars have also explained how their communities challenged the idea of interviews (e.g., Chilisa, 2012; Kovach, 2021). I have also challenged the power dynamics and my own gaze about how I perceived and worked with the participants who were not seen as objects of study or repository of data. They were knowledge-holders who shaped the trajectory of the research in terms of the research plan, analysis and discussion. This was an ethical and moral duty to centre care, community work, accountability, ethics and collaboration. The decolonising agenda in the research process sought to create a socially just and community-based approach to avoid reinscribing harm and exploitation given the past histories of research with minoritised communities as well as the colonial and Black Decade trauma experienced by the Algerians. The Black Decade was a civil war which happened in the 1990s. Indigenous Maori scholar Smith (2021) said, ‘the term research is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism. The word itself, ‘research’ is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary’ (p. 1). It is from this grounding that I have become more interested in using decolonisation as a creative way to address past and present historic violence and erasures, and imagine how can educational futures repair injustice and inequality. It is to this question I turn next.

Educational Futures: Towards a Decolonising Practice

There are many ideas and orientations which we can work with to think of the future of education. This chapter is concerned with the vision of an educational future as a space for troubling the politics of knowledge and university curriculum to address and repair injustice and inequality through a decolonising lens.

There is a growing interest in analysing and reconciling history and futures. Fields such as race, queer and decolonial studies critically interrogate ‘disciplinary divides between history and future as domains of inquiry’ (Facer, 2021, p. 16). This can be evidenced in the previous sections where I have explained how decolonisation is used to rethink how research and education are historically and inherently ideological, and therefore they can (re)produce exclusion and inequality. In fact, if we are not engaging with our past histories then we are doomed to repeat it. Facer (2021) explains that working through these histories enables us to uncover new realities and relations grounded in equality and dignity. But for this to happen, Sriprakash et al. (2020) argue that dialogue is the starting point for this critical engagement—although uncomfortable and challenging. The decolonising lens which I am suggesting here allows us to inhabit an educational future which interrogates past and present injustices. Furthermore, working in solidarity is key. Abegglen et al. (2023) argue that ‘collaboration can break individuality and hierarchy that emphasises reflection, discussion and collective action for inclusivity, diversity and change’ (p. 4). These dialogues can form relations of solidarity and co-producing creative ideas and orientations of the future in education. It is also important to note that the practice of interrogating, critically engaging, resisting coloniality and repairing futures is about examining power—as discussed earlier in this chapter. The claims we make about the future are not neutral. Therefore, Facer (2021) reminds us to approach our futures with modesty, care and ethics of responsibility. This also aligns with Stein’s (2022) claim who also invites us to interrogate our efforts and vision of the futures, so we do not exclude other possibilities and realities. In the context of decolonisation, this should be fore-fronted, so we do not run the risk of colonising the future.

Decolonisation lays the ground to (re)orient us toward creating educational futures which may avoid reproducing the harm of the past. In addition to collective dialogue and working in solidarity, actively listening to the lived experiences, hopes and creative imagination of those who have been historically oppressed are also essential for the co-creation of knowledge and ideas of an imagined educational future. We may question ourselves at times regarding the rationale and significance of bringing the past into the future. But I turn to Facer (2021), who explains that ‘the past is also a site of unrealised possibilities, an abundant reservoir of lost knowledges, unfulfilled talents and hidden capabilities’ (p. 20). Therefore, envisaging the future through a decolonising lens enables us to self-scrutinise our positionality, power, privileges and hegemonic forces influencing our beliefs and actions (decolonising the mind), address gaps and frictions in our education system, and respond to them accordingly to restore justice, collective healing and agency. In what follows, I offer some practical guidelines to begin to think of what decolonising a research methods curriculum in education fields may look like and mean for the emergence of educational futures.

Rethinking the Research Methods Curriculum: Proposing a Decolonial and Reflexive Turn

As a result of this ongoing work, I have become more interested in critically interrogating curriculum development through a decolonising lens in order to challenge the status quo of education and cause ruptions in the way we think about research and education—and our relationships with each other (e.g. teacher-student, student-student, researcher-participant), knowledge and the university. In fact, in recent years, there has been a growing interest to decolonise the curriculum and challenge those who dominate spaces of knowledge and power. According to Moosavi (2022), a decolonised curriculum is defined as the inclusion of valuable yet neglected knowledge into HE provision and practice as well as reflecting Global Majority students’ experiences, beliefs and cultural heritage. However, according to Stein (2022), decolonisation is often misunderstood because there is not enough intellectual scaffolding which supports the build-up of a rigorous, reflexive and dialogic analysis. Consequently, this leads to decontextualisation, lack of literacy and inability to hold space of discomfort, struggle and collective agency which are needed if we want to reconcile the past and the future. So, it is essential to ask ourselves: how can we think and plan something better, more creative and collaborative? The we in imagining educational futures and a decolonised curriculum should also involve our students and colleagues across different disciplines and departments to break individuality and hierarchy, and nurture the practices of reflexivity, collective dialogue, active listening and ethics of responsibility. Such dialogic collaboration is also encouraged by scholars such as Facer (2021) or hooks (1994) who claim that we need to invite students to think reflexively and critically about the future of education and go beyond the mastery of bodies of knowledge only. In addition, we need to encourage them to look at research paradigms and practices through a critical and ideological lens to understand the potential harm, exploitation and violence of research—especially in the context of working with marginalised communities, and within diverse cultures. As there is a need for practical resources to allow the emergence of new and creative realities (Facer, 2021), the following table hopefully offers guidance to those who are interested to decolonise their curriculum, teaching and research. It can also encourage teachers and students to disrupt passive modes and forms of learning and be creative and innovative with their approaches to knowledge production and thinking of educational futures. The proposed framework is the result of my extensive work in the field and the common themes and questions that the community of practice within and beyond HE which I am part of often asks. This collective imagination and agency would help us imagine what reparative, inclusive and socially just educational future may entail and look like to achieve what Morreira et al. (2021) refers to as ‘epistemic humility’ (Table 10.1).

Table 10.1 Reflexive questions to consider when decolonising the curriculum
Full size table

Efforts to decolonise clearly require time, patience and resources, but most importantly ongoing reflexivity. Reflexivity plays a crucial part in understanding how this work is navigated, theorised and actioned. Decolonial scholars argue that it is essential to use reflexivity as part of decolonising the mind, and scrutinising our decolonial efforts and how this is translated into the wider context of the university. It also enables us to evolve and be aware of how we may reinscribe colonial and exclusionary practices in teaching and research. In terms of the future of education, Facer (2013) also mentions the importance of reflexivity as this has not been cultivated enough in our ideas of the future. Therefore, if we care about the future, it matters we do it with the necessary tools, knowledge, critical reflection and resources. However, Moosavi (2022) reminds us not to turn this process of reflexivity about ourselves only. Within the context of decolonisation, he claims that looking at our decolonial efforts does not mean we should

engage in narcissistic self-indulgence for the sake of overcoming our insecurities but to revisit our analyses, theories, concepts research and teaching with a frankness that will enable us to build on existing attempts to decolonise. (p. 3)

The process to decolonise a curriculum invites us to think about our positionality, power and privileges and challenge the traditional, individualistic and knowledge transmission approaches to education. Decolonisation recognises the implications of coloniality in education and research; the ideology of Western superiority which controls knowledge and power and works towards the decolonisation of the mind and body (Pirbhai-Illich et al., 2022). It refuses epistemic violence, decentres Western logics and commits to explore different possibilities of the future.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter was to foreground a creative orientation based on decolonising thinking to work with ideas of the future—in the context of university curriculum and educational research more broadly. The concept of decolonisation is not new. It has always carried a significant value to those who experienced colonisation, racial trauma and racism within and beyond educational spaces. For decades, Global South and postcolonial scholars have developed multiple forms of decolonial activism to resist systems of oppression. Decolonisation fulfils different roles, all of which have a significant value to inform educational futures: imagination, creativity, healing, transformation and repair. Facer (2021) argues that such roles are about the practice of power—and its democratisation (my word)—which has been a central theme throughout this chapter. The chapter has told the story of my journey of decolonising my mind—although this is ongoing—through critical reflexivity and experimenting what it may mean to decolonise research and the curriculum. Such orientation and proposed framework to decolonise and think of the future are not intended to impose a teaching model (although anyone is welcome to use it), but my overall aim is to invite all to think about the role which decolonisation can fulfil, and its link to past histories, present and futures. It can be used as a starting point to think creatively, carefully, ethically and responsibly about the knowledges, ideas and stories which we can create about the future of education.