Though there is no standard model or practice for what decolonizing research methodology looks like, there are ongoing scholarly conversations about theoretical foundations, principal components, and practical applications. However, as qualitative researchers, we think it is important to provide tangible ways to incorporate decolonial learning into our research methodology and overall practice. In this paper, we draw on theories of decolonization and exemplars from the literature to propose four practices that can be used by qualitative researchers: (1) exercising critical reflexivity, (2) reciprocity and respect for self- determination, (3) embracing “Other(ed)” ways of knowing, and (4) embodying a transformative praxis. At this moment of our historical trajectory, it is a moral imperative to embrace decolonizing approaches when working with populations oppressed by colonial legacies.
action research, community-based research, emancipatory research, ethical inquiry, par—participatory action research, methods in qualitative inquiry
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Phillip Orcher, Victoria J. Palmer and Tyson Yunkaporta
2025 | Australia
This paper describes the health and wellbeing applications of a protocol designed from a Gumbaynggirr Australian First People’s concept, Bigaagarri. The protocol reframes threats to health and wellbeing as part of a communicative system of environmental signals, rather than an individualised, behavioural fight–flight–fear response. Developed by a Muruwari Gumbaynggirr…
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2024 | Australia
The issue of suicide has garnered considerable attention in refugee scholarship, where research examines how unique forced migration and resettlement challenges exacerbate risks and vulnerabilities to suicide. However, there are gaps in understanding the social and cultural factors shaping the lived experience of suicide in refugee communities. Using the…
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2025 | United States
Performance methodologies take many forms—performative writing, poetic transcription, and co-performative witnessing, to name only a few—and can be both process and product, differentiating and unifying a group between and across differences. As a social work researcher committed to decolonial, liberatory methodologies that make and bring meaning to the communities…
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