Under this Western paradigm, colonisers, adventurers and travellers researched the indigenous Other through their “objective” and “neutral” gaze. In the first part of the book, Smith deconstructs the assumptions, motivations and values that inform Western research practices through exploring the Enlightenment and Positivist traditions in which Western research is viewed as a scientific, “objective” process. The second part focuses on setting a new agenda for indigenous research. The first part discusses the history of Western research and critiques the cultural assumptions behind research by the dominant colonial culture. According to Smith, “decolonization” is concerned with having “a more critical understanding of the underlying assumptions, motivations and values that inform research practices”.ĭecolonizing Methodologies is divided into two parts.
Smith challenges traditional Western ways of knowing and researching and calls for the “decolonization” of methodologies, and for a new agenda of indigenous research. Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou) essential text Decolonizing Methodologies is an extensive critique of Western paradigms of research and knowledge. Research and Indigenous Peoples London, UK: Zed Books, 1999 (and Otago University Press).
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