Challenging colonial practices in research: A guide for PhD researchers.

Dr Jocelyne Sze, Researcher, Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Jocelyne shared her learnings on coloniality in research, drawing on her experience as someone trained in positivist natural sciences. She briefly covered, from her point of view, why as researchers working in academia we should challenge coloniality, going through the history of research's complicity in colonialism and present legacies. She also shared some prompts on how to begin challenging coloniality in our own research, from our personal positionalities.
In this video, you will learn:
- Knowledge production is inherently political and creates power imbalances.
- Our identity, upbringing, and personal experiences have an effect on our work as researchers.
- Reflecting on our positionality and thinking through how and why we do research can help us start challenging the colonial norms of research and academia.
Jocelyne (she/her) is a Singaporean Chinese trained as a natural scientist in conservation. During her PhD at the University of Sheffield (UK), she started exploring concepts of coloniality and decoloniality and the close ties between academia and colonialism. Alongside other PhD researchers, she developed a guide for other researchers (particularly coming from the natural sciences) to navigate these tensions. She works at the Autonomous University of Barcelona on Conservation Data Justice, looking at how geospatial data (maps) are used in conservation and its justice implications. She's interested in Indigenous/non-dominant approaches to conservation, and creating a just future for all on this Earth.
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