Session 2–Resisting Colonial Extractive Research Methods: An Argument for Critical Discourse Analysis – Katherine Morton Richards
Resisting Colonial Extractive Research Methods: An Argument for Critical Discourse Analysis – Katherine Morton Richards
Abstract: Too often within settler-colonial academia, Indigenous people and communities are treated as “sources” of data, available for harvesting and settler analysis. Even in work that seeks to be with and for Indigenous people, there is an all-too-common pressure for research to be extractive in nature. Over the course of several years, this pressure to be extractive clashed with my intentions as a settler colonial researcher interested in exploring the meaning-making found within Indigenous-state relations and their symbols in Canada. In this manuscript, I discuss not only the decision based on the current political climate and shifting research priorities to end my PhD research field work, but also offer an assessment of critical discourse analysis as a less oppressive method for studies of settler colonialism.
This assessment of critical discourse analysis and also what remains of my abandoned project read together as an exploration of what alternative data collection may look like for settler-colonial researchers combatting the pressure to be extractive in settler research involving Indigeneity, colonialism, and Indigenous-state relations.
Biography: Katherine (she/her) is a settler researcher, originally from unceded Coast Salish territory who know works, lives, and researches on unceded Mi’kmaq territory and traditional territory of the Beothuk. Katherine teaches in law and society, sociology, political science, and history in the areas of Indigenous-State relations and Indigenous identity. She is ABD in her PhD program and holds a MA in Political Science. Katherine’s research interests include intersections between gender and Indigeneity, colonial violence, place making, hitchhiking, and ugliness as a political category.