Decolonizing Methodologies or Leaving America

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

Author: Linda Tuhiwai Smith

From the vantage point of the colonized, the term 'research' is inextricably linked with European colonialism; the ways in which scientific research has been implicated in the worst excesses of imperialism remains a powerful remembered history for many of the world's colonized peoples. Here, an indigenous researcher issues a clarion call for the decolonization of research methods.

The book is divided into two parts. In the first, the author critically examines the historical and philosophical base of Western research. Extending the work of Foucault, she explores the intersections of imperialism, knowledge and research, and the different ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and methodologies as 'regimes of truth'. Providing a history of knowledge from the Enlightenment to Postcoloniality, she also discusses the fate of concepts such as 'discovery, 'claiming' and 'naming' through which the west has incorporated and continues to incorporate the indigenous world within its own web.

The second part of the book meets the urgent need for people who are carrying out their own research projects, for literature which validates their frustrations in dealing with various western paradigms, academic traditions and methodologies, which continue to position the indigenous as 'Other'. In setting an agenda for planning and implementing indigenous research, the author shows how such programmes are part of the wider project of reclaiming control over indigenous ways of knowing and being.

Exploring the broad range of issues which have confronted, and continue to confront, indigenous peoples, in their encounters with western knowledge, this book also sets astandard for truly emancipatory research. It brilliantly demonstrates that ‘when indigenous peoples become the researchers and not merely the researched, the activity of research is transformed.’

Booknews

The pursuit of scientific research has, throughout Western history, been bound up with colonialism and imperialism, and indeed some of the worst evils done against indigenous peoples have been in the name of "research." The author, herself a Maori and also a researcher, seeks herein to free the concept of scientific research from its imperialist associations. She takes a Foucaultian approach to an examination of the history of knowledge, and works to develop a theory and methodology of research which strives to be free from colonialist implications and practices. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

Interesting book: Teoría basada en el Recurso:Creación y Sostenimiento de Ventaja Competitiva

Leaving America: The New Expatriate Generation

Author: John R Wennersten

Today more than ever, large numbers of Americans are leaving the United States. It is estimated that by the end of the decade, some 10 million of the brightest and most talented Americans, representing an estimated $136 billion in wages, will be living and working overseas. This emigration trend contradicts the internalized myth of America as the land of affluence, opportunity, and freedom. What is behind this trend? Wennersten argues that many people these days, from college students to retirees, are uncertain or ambivalent about what it means to be an American. For example, many are uncomfortable with that they believe America has come to represent to the rest of the world. At the same time, globalization and advances in technology have enabled the growth of a telecommuting work force whose members can live in one country and work in another, and this trend, among other factors, has encouraged a new generation of people to respond to the pull of "global citizenship."

Leaving America is an important reexamination of one of the most central stories in the history of American culture--the story of the immigrant coming to the Promised Land. While millions still come to American and millions more still wish to do so, there is an important counterflow of emigration from America to distant parts of the planet. This book focuses on modern American expatriates as a significant and heretofore largely ignored counterpoint phenomenon every bit as central to understanding modern America as is the image of a nation of immigrants. The greatest irony in America today may well be that while argument and discord prevail in the edifice of American democracy about diversity, economic justice, equality, and the Iraq War, many of the most thoughtful citizens have already left the building.

Table of Contents:

Preface     ix
Explaining Expatriate Motivation     1
The Expatriate Archipelago     19
Dissenters, Tax Fugitives, and Utopians     33
The Expatriate Countries: Canada, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand     51
Black Exiles and Sojourners     61
Women Expatriates     83
Go East, Young Man     101
Gringo Gulch: Retired Expatriates and Sojourners in Latin America     115
The Return of the Native     137
American Citizens Living Abroad by Country     151
Top Ten Countries Where Most Expatriate Americans Live, 2006     159
Ten Most Popular Expatriate Meccas     161
Compendium of English Online International Newspapers     163
Online Expatriate Networks     167
Notes     169
Select Bibliography     181
Index     183