Description

Over the last decades, two groups of scholars in qualitative research (QR) have come to challenge the universalistic claims and domination of research methodologies and epistemologies of the Global North: scholars practicing and promoting QR in the Global South and Indigenous researchers engaging in decolonization of QR. This panel brings together two researchers in conversation about the politics of doing critical QR in a global era. Calling upon their respective research, they will relate their discussion to issues centred on doing critical qualitative health research.

Dr. Hsiung will first summarize the development of QR in the Global South over the last decades. She will then use the development of Sociology from the Global South as an example to illustrate how it has established itself an alternative knowledge vis-à-vis the Global North. She will identify distinct challenges in advancing QR from the perspectives of the Global South. She will also explore its shared struggles with scholars engaging in the decolonizing endeavour and in ‘scientific’ fields dominated by positivist research in the Global North.

Dr.Kovach will then focus on qualitative research in Indigenous communities. Qualitative researchers within the health and social sciences are often involved in research that impacts Indigenous communities. For researchers seeking not to replicate extractive, disrespectful research practices within Indigenous communities, questions arise as to the role of methodology itself as a way forward. In considering the function of methodology as a decolonizing practice what can be learned from emergent approaches as Indigenous methodologies, Dr. Kovach will discuss indigenous principles and methodologies in qualitative research in the Canadian context. She will reference methodological considerations in her current SSHRC funded project focusing on the experience of social work and education faculty who seek to integrate Indigenous knowledges into their teaching life.

Dr. Hsiung has provided training on critical qualitative research to the first cohort of feminist scholars and activists in China, collaborated with academic scholars to establish the first women’s studies program in key Chinese universities, and supported teaching and research about qualitative research in China and Taiwan. Recently, she has examined the practices and development of Qualitative Research in the Global South.

Dr. Kovach is the author of the celebrated book Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Context (University of Toronto Press, 2009). She has made concerted efforts to create space for indigenous scholarship in Western academy through her teaching and research. As a leading Indigenous scholar, Dr. Kovach has contributed to decolonizing endeavors that challenge eurocentric methodologies and epistemologies in knowledge production and reproduction.