Decolonising research with black communities: developing equitable and ethical relationships between academic and community stakeholders

Abstract

In this International Decade for People of African Descent,1 the spotlight in Canada and in other Western countries has turned to understanding and documenting the lived experiences of black communities. This interest by scholars is perhaps even greater over the last few months with the heightened attention around the world as the Black Lives Matter movements have highlighted anti-black racism in North America. However, reflective of the wider social injustices against black persons, there have been harmful relationships between researchers and black communities historically that has led to black communities mistrusting researchers (Davis et al, 2010; Scharff et al, 2010). These histories have parallels with critiques of the sustained damages of white settler scholarship on, but not with, Indigenous communities where, as Linda Tuhaiwi Smith famously noted that ‘“research” is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary’ (Smith, 2012: 1). Moreover, more and more attention has been given to ethical research practices that go beyond simply getting ethical approval from research ethics boards (Tuck and Guishard, 2013; Doucet, 2018a). In particular, Indigenous communities and scholars who conduct research with them, and to a lesser extent black communities and scholars, have been calling for more attention to be paid to the nature and quality of the relationships that researchers are building with communities who have historically been oppressed in research and in society generally (Gibbs, 2001; Semali et al, 2007; Napoli, 2019). Specifically, Families, Relationships and Societies