Researching Violence, Researching Ourselves: Unsettling Knowledge Production on Gendered and Sexual Violence

Abstract

The colonial nature in which academia has taken shape has meant that its practices of acquiring and producing knowledge are often violent towards those affected by sexual and gender-based violence. Shifting the praxis of how knowledge is understood and engaged in, means critiquing these traditionally colonial methods, as well as identifying new ways of engaging with academia and the framework of conducting research. Contributors of the Unsettling Knowledge Production on Gendered and Sexual Violence Project have undertaken this idea in their individual and collaborative work as a way to challenge, disrupt and change the sometimes violent nature of research on sexual and gender-based violence. These contributors believe that there is a responsibility for producing knowledge that is respectful and which contributes towards the goals of care, ethical engagement and social justice, from the inception of the research work through to its dissemination. In this article, we look at their reflections on what unsettling knowledge means for them as they simultaneously navigate and resist colonial structures within which their work still takes place. They describe their journeys within this unsettling and decolonial framing and how they try to enact it in their work on sexual and gender-based violence.