Critical Research Ethics as Decolonial Praxis

A comment and responses

Abstract

In the comment “Critical Research Ethics as Decolonial Praxis” Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo emphasises the importance of critical research ethics in decolonial praxis within academia, highlighting the harmful effects of irresponsible and extractive scholarship that perpetuates epistemic violence and injustice by disregarding non-Western epistemologies, knowledge-makers, agency, and history. The author argues that confronting the embeddedness of knowledge production in imperial, colonial, and patriarchal ideologies, practices, and histories is crucial for engaging in a rehumanising and redistributive academic praxis. June Rubis continues the discussion, pointing out the limitations of superficial attempts to decolonise academic institutions, which often exclude Indigenous voices and fail to confront ongoing colonial violence. She suggests that a more meaningful decolonial project requires remaking relationships towards liberatory justice, including ethical collaboration and accountability with the communities researchers work with. Antony George Pattathu concludes that decolonial praxis and ethics must address colonial continuities and complicities and work towards preventing their perpetuation in research. He focusses on the roles of rehumanising and of Whiteness in decolonial praxis, critical research ethics, and the importance of the emotional dimension involved in decolonial debates.