Abstract
The use of race in research is always problematic as it is loaded with dangers and unforeseeable consequences. Where race (or ethnicity interpreted as colour-based) is used as a variable or an ‘explanation’, politically constructed racial categories are reproduced, thereby perpetuating stigma, discrimination, and racism. It was precisely this use of race that was exemplified in the recent publication, and subsequent retraction, of an article by Nieuwoudt, Dickie, Coetsee, Engelbrecht, and Terblanche (2019), titled, ‘Age- and education-related effects on cognitive functioning in Colored South African women’, as published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition: A Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development.
Given the focus on women particularly, racist preconceptions intersect with sexist prejudices in the article. The authors draw heavily on colonial racist stereotypes portraying all Coloured women as intellectually deficient and make sweeping racist and sexist generalisations from their study. The authors claim that ‘Colored women in South Africa are a vulnerable population group . . . for . . . low cognitive functioning’, and that ‘the very low cognitive scores are attributed to a combination of low education level, poor quality of education and socio-demographic factors, such as ethnicity, employment, marital status, income and health status’ (Nieuwoudt et al., 2019, p. 10, our italics). Implicit in this explanation is the notion that being a Coloured woman in itself is related to low cognitive functioning. Nowhere in the article was ethnicity or race (and again, ethnicity is confused and conflated with race in the article) understood through any theoretical or methodological lens. Not only did the researchers simply assume that being Coloured is a transparent category that can be identified based on people’s appearances, but there was also no matching or control group in the study with which this group was compared.
When the study was shared on social media platforms, national (and international) outrage ensued. Much of the emotion was sparked by a petition calling for the retraction of the article due to the colonial stereotyping of ‘Coloured’ women which was signed, in 7 days, by over 10,151 (as of 17 May 2019) academics, students, and members of the general public, worldwide. Alongside the petition, the Division for Research and Methodology (DRM) of the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) issued an open critical review statement on behalf of the PsySSA. The DRM statement called for Stellenbosch University, where the researchers of the questionable study were based, and the publishing journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, to take responsibility for the lack of rigorous research and ethics management and questioned their institutional reviewer systems’ capacities to flag non-reflexive and culturally insensitive research. Subsequent to the collaborative actions of the petition, DRM and other colleagues, the journal retracted the article and Stellenbosch University started creating platforms for discussions regarding race as a variable in research. The media closely followed the story, with several radio and television interviews as well as newspaper pieces reporting on the issue, suggesting that this was an important issue, not just for academics but for the general public in South Africa.
Built on colonialism, apartheid manufactured a very particular understanding of race among and for people within the borders of present-day South Africa. Since around 1950, people in this society were legally divided into four arranged population groups through legislation such as the Population Registration Act, Group Areas Act, and the Immorality Amendment Act (Union of South Africa, 1950a, 1950b, 1950c). These groups were not only said to be essentially different human categories, but moreover they were hierarchically arranged from the most human to the least human. Those identified as ‘Whites’ were considered to be the ideal humans, the top category, and hence most desirable population group. The rest, in descending order from the ‘Whites’, classified as ‘Indians/Asians’, ‘Coloureds’, or ‘Blacks/natives’, occupied the lower rungs of the racial ladder. Because of the longevity and ‘ideological success’ of colonial and apartheid rule in South Africa, post-apartheid society has not been able to move away from apartheid racial categories. As is evident in the article by Nieuwoudt et al. (2019), researchers are certainly not immune to reproducing colonial and apartheid racism (and sexism) in their work.
The deployment of the colonial and apartheid-inspired idea of race in research, from proposal development, instruments, and selection of participants to statistical analysis, theoretical interpretations, and generalisations, can result in deleterious conclusions for racially subordinated groups and individuals. The view of race inherited from colonialism and apartheid does a disservice to scientific inquiry because of its logic of political instrumentality. It injudiciously homogenises people. It supports harmful knowledge practices and it reproduces oppressions masked as science that linger in the long aftermath of these colonialist and apartheid systems.
We are conscious that in policy making, the use of racial categories is sometimes called for in order to justify the whys, wherefores, and hows of redressing historical racial inequalities. The most obvious examples of such use are in state and parastatal reports, the most prominent being the census. That said, it is also necessary to recognise that the post-apartheid state has generally shown a severe lack of imagination when it comes to thinking about society beyond racial categories. There is almost maddening slavishness in how the democratic state follows apartheid designation by continuing to understand our society as made up of four essentially different races.
We are aware too that race categorisations are extensively used in research. This is often in quantitative studies where race is regarded as an important variable, although qualitative and other forms of research also fall into the apartheid race trap. At the same time, cognisance should be taken that ideologies and constructions of race can be a legitimate topic of social scientific and philosophic research. What is irksome in many race-related studies is the careless use of the concept to reduce human lives and experiences to neatly defined classification schemes.
Given the minefield of (problematic) race-related research (see Erasmus et al., 2012; Rindermann, 2013; Rushton & Templer, 2009) in the shadow of colonialism and apartheid, we ought to recognise psychologists who sometimes or often use race as a biological marker or characteristic associated with inferiority or superiority and call on each other to seriously reconsider the implications of such use. Race in research has to be used with great care (if it must be used at all). Jingoistic uses of race in studies make for unethical research. A concerted reconsideration of race is imperative as the cavalier and employment of race categories impinges on human dignity and the quest for a truly free knowledge society unfettered from a debasing, distasteful apartheid past. The discriminatory power to stigmatise people by the colour of their skin under the guise of objective research enquiry is a practice we must oppose as it perpetuates detrimental stereotypes, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Unethical research impoverishes all of us as researchers. The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA; 2008), the statutory regulatory body for all health care professions such as medicine, occupational health, and psychology (including neuropsychology), has standing ethical policies for health researchers. These policies are aligned with the Constitution of South Africa and the Bill of Rights (‘Constitution of the Republic of South Africa’, 1996) – a foundational document which centralises dignity, equality, and other universal human rights precepts that have become a central part of our polity in the 25 years of our democracy. The first and foremost prerogative of research is the protection of participants and their dignity through the core ethical values of non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy, confidentiality, and justice. We as scientists are called to ‘place the best interest of the participants above all other interests’ (p. 7) as set out in the HPCSA (2008) General Ethical Guidelines for Health Researchers, and to recognise that the researchers are ‘in a position of power over participants and should avoid abusing their position’ (p. 7). Above all, the dignity and other human rights of participants in our South African society cannot be violated through questionable research masquerading as science.
Therefore, to promote ethical science and practice, with special attention being paid to psychological science and practice, we call on
(a) Researchers to take time to reflect on their personal racial (which often intersect class, sexual, gender, and ability-related) suppositions and conceptualisations which can manifest in biased research questions, tool development, designs, methods, recruitment strategies, interpretations, and conclusions. The same invitation for painstaking reflection is extended to teachers of psychology, supervisors, and practitioners.
(b) Institutions of higher learning to create and take better care and responsibility for more rigorous research management systems of knowledge produced by staff and students. Institutions have power to contribute to training in ethical research, research integrity, and research for the public good, and they are more than just negligent if they abdicate this responsibility.
(c) Ethics committees to implement scrupulous but critical policies and procedures with the aim to remove potentially discriminatory research based on race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and bodily ability. As an example, the inclusion of critical scholars on race needs to be considered for ethical reviews of proposed studies of marginalised groups where race is hypothesised to be a key variable.
(d) Journal reviewers and editors to be more vigilant in the reproduction and dissemination of research that may strip research participants of their dignity and perpetuate racial discrimination.
(e) Grant agencies and the Department of Higher Education to reflect on the decision processes used to reward research and researchers, and, in particular, to assess whether these processes are sensitive to issues of racist and sexist discrimination and the potentially unfavourable implications for the researched.
Colonial difference inheres in many so-called scientific studies conducted on all those who, under colonialism, began to be classified as Blacks and the so-called ‘people of colour’. Studies that reinforce colonial and apartheid difference therefore have to be carefully but robustly rebutted so as to show their presuppositions, prejudices, and potential for injury. Decolonising research means a clear-minded focus on the colonial differences that came to shape science, and indeed modernity itself, since the 15th century. The difference that colonialism inserted at the core of humanity, of knowledge, of politics, or of culture inaugurated colonial modernity. At a time when South African, and more broadly global Southern scholarship, has decisively turned towards decolonising and transformative knowledge, we need to take all opportunities to construct new, ethical, decolonising, and emancipatory knowledge. The onus is on South African critical psychologists and researchers, alongside practitioners from other disciplines, to call out researchers who depart from anti-racist, anti-sexist, African-centred, Southern-facing, and other critical ontologies and epistemologies, to uproot historical seeds of racism and discrimination. Therefore, we need to create avenues for transformative knowledge such that research does not become a dirty thought but the tool to disrupt colonial knowledge and knowledge-making processes that serve only to reify intergroup antipathy and structural oppression.