Decolonising research methodology must include undoing its dirty history

Maori anthropologist Linda Tuhiwai Smith, in her seminal work Decolonising Methodologies, argues that

Re-search is a dirty word.

Hyphenating “research” into “re-search” is very useful because it reveals what is involved, what it really means, and goes beyond the naive view of “research” as an innocent pursuit of knowledge.
It underscores the fact that “re-searching” involves the activity of undressing other people so as to see them naked. It is also a process of reducing some people to the level of micro-organism: putting them under a magnifying glass to peep into their private lives, secrets, taboos, thinking, and their sacred worlds. More...