Postcolonial Autoethnography: Healing Wounded Humanities

Entering the Field of Autoethnographic Research

I (the first author) had not enough research experience in my academic journey before joining the School of Education Kathmandu University [KUSOED] except for doing my Master’s degree dissertation. I was taught and grew up with a scientific research culture governed by a post/positivist paradigm. The post/positivist paradigm celebrates the single universal reality and objective methodology aiming to generalize the research finding. Scientific logic, rational and deductive thinking, representation, generalization, unbiasedness, and reliability, among others, are some fundamental constructs of post/positivist research. I was captivated by this view and was not ready to accept an alternative approach to educational research.

It could be July 1998; we (me and my friends) were preparing our Master’s Degree dissertation. We shared our research with each other. I did my Master’s dissertation, entitled ‘A comparative study of primary level students under grade and subject teaching . . .’ I used inferential statistical techniques such as t-test, chi-square test, and test of correlation coefficient to analyze the data and drew the conclusion based on them. One of my friends, not from department of mathematics education, did his dissertation by describing the field texts aligning with previous empirical research and theoretical perspective without using statistical tools and tests. I raised some questions to him; how did you generalize your research? Without generalization, what was the meaning of research? I thought it was not valid research. He became nervous and hesitated. He said that it was done under the supervision of a university professor. Why did you raise the question? Likewise, he also asked some questions to me. How did you ensure the numerical value assigned to quantify the Likert-type Scale might represent the people’s perspectives? People’s emotions, beliefs, perspectives, and convictions rarely be represented in quantitative form. We continuously exchanged our arguments. It seemed to be an endless discussion; I left the debate.

In the evening, when I critically examined his questions, I realized that these were genuine. I also remembered the event encountered during my fieldwork, where one of the respondents showed his discontent with the closed questionnaires because there was no space to express his true feeling, vision, value and conviction. I used the arbitrary power of being a university student and researcher. I did my research by referring power of the university.

It is a great issue in research and education whether a hidden power implicitly governs our educational and research activities. The above narrative showed the researchers focus on generating, analyzing and interpreting according to their own perspectives because their universities contribute to developing the specific frames of reference, the practitioners’ habit of mind and meaning perspectives (Mezirow, 1991, 2012). The result was that the practitioners had a deep-rooted mindset about educational research. It was difficult for me to conceive an alternative research methodology. However, I did not satisfy with the conventional scientific research methodology. My keen interest and enthusiasm for involving research led me to enroll in KUSOED to pursue my Master of Philosophy (MPhil.) in mathematics education. I got an opportunity to engage in alternative methodologies: narrative, ethnography, autoethnography, phenomenology, case study, among others, which are underpinned by interpretive, critical, postmodern, and integral paradigms. These methodologies seemed quite stranger to me because I was familiar only with scientific research paradigms. Among the different methodologies, I was impressed by autoethnography because it provided a space for including personal experiences along with social, cultural, historical, and political embeddedness in these experiences as authentic texts.

Autoethnography is a research methodology that explores the individual self-concerning institutional and cultural settings (T. Adams et al., 2015, 2021). Individual self-experiences embedded with academic and professional journeys, sociocultural dimensions, power structures, and institutional settings. It is a research method and way of writing in which researchers and research participants are free to express their lived experiences that make possible to understand the phenomenon from different perspectives. Internalizing its significant roles in educational research, I employed it in my MPhil dissertation to uncover my images of mathematics, pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment. I had un/knowingly limited to digging out most of the internal (central to the periphery, metropolis to the rural, institutional role, curriculum formation process, a pedagogical approach adopted by teachers, assessment systems used in assessing the students’ learning, etc.) factors without having conscious and mindful gazes toward the external (power relation of the Western and non-Western nations, perspectives and ideologies, techno-cultural tools, etc.) forces, even though I had used critical paradigm. After starting my PhD journey, I have eagerly engaged in exploring the possible forces that implicitly or explicitly govern our research activities and curricular practices of schools and universities. I have gone through seminal works of educators, researchers, and philosophers (Andreotti, 2011; Bishop, 1990; Denzin, 2017; Ernest, 2016; Fernandes et al., 2022; Gramsci, 1971; Held, 2019; Luitel & Taylor, 2010; Naomi, 2021; Paraskeva, 2016; Smith, 2012; Taylor et al., 2012; Thambinathan & Kinsella, 2021; van Stam, 2017; Young, 2016) and have come to understand that research and education both are political activities. These works further support me in understanding the role of asymmetric power relations, techno-cultural tools, and domination of Western-Eurocentric thoughts in education and research. In this context, the major objective of this paper is to explore the dominant forces behind educational research and portray the different features of postcolonial autoethnographic inquiry.

Postcolonial Positionality to Autoethnography Research

The only time-bound analysis of history teaches us that colonialism passed out after the colonial forces (basically military forces) left most of the territories they had occupied previously. By the early and/or mid of the 20th century, colonial power centers had changed their strategies of imposing Western-Eurocentric ideology (Smith, 2012) through physical and armed forces to through soft powers: education, technology, finance, and culture that impede others’ knowledge, languages, ideologies, and cultures (Wagle et al., 2019). In the name of assisting in education, economy, technology, finance, policy, among others, the colonial power creates a vicious circle of condemnation, brainwashing, and conditioning (van Stam, 2017). The vestiges of Western-European colonialism remain embedded in the history, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment system, which ignore and devalue the local, historical, cultural, and national realities and ways of knowing (Fernandes et al., 2022). We need to embrace postcolonial research, which enables us to resist the hegemonic culture present not only in academic research but also in every aspect of the lives of the people of marginalized groups and disenfranchised countries (Toyosaki, 2018).

In this article, postcolonial positionality refers to ideological critique and disruption of hegemonic Western-Eurocentric thoughts, cultures, paradigms, epistemologies, and values that underpin academic imperialism (Luitel & Taylor, 2010; Paraskeva, 2016; Smith, 2012; Thambinathan & Kinsella, 2021; van Stam, 2017). Postcolonial research offers an alternative research space in which each people of the world, irrespective of nation, origin, gender, ethnic/caste, race, indigeneity, and economic status, have an equal right to bring into action their values, perspectives, epistemologies, and methodologies (Chilisa et al., 2017) having equal respect to others. It challenges the asymmetric power relations within educational institutions, nations, and the world established by the myths, hegemonic narratives of mainstreaming groups, and Western-Eurocentric modernity. The implication is that postcolonial research provides a set of lenses through which the researchers can make visible the severe effects of Western-European colonialism on every aspect of life by challenging the notion of realist ontology, objective epistemology, and value-free axiology.

Philosophical Positioning of Postcolonial Autoethnography

Research is not an isolated task in which a researcher engages as an outsider observer and explainer. Research activities embed with researchers’ worldviews, convictions, and communities of practices that guide their actions (Held, 2019; Willis, 2007). These actions vary according to the researcher’s sociocultural backgrounds, entranced power structures within and outside the educational institution, individual convictions and perspectives, values, and way of knowing. Before entering the research field as a postcolonial researcher, it is better to disclose the researcher’s position on these constructs that help navigate a research project.

Postcolonial Autoethnography: Unearthing Colonial Legacy and Revitalizing Others

Owing to the colonial authority and surveillance of the hegemonic power structures pervasive in the academy, we could not include local epistemologies, beliefs, discourses, and historical knowledge in our curricula (J. Adams et al., 2008; Naomi, 2021) and research processes. In this context, we must take a postcolonial posture to include these attributes in our research and curricula.

Postcolonial autoethnography refers to the critical attributions of an autoethnography that help overt the hidden colonial entrenchment in social science research. It is a “revealer” that exposes sociocultural, historical, and political consolidation of self/others; a “healer” that cures wounded humanities through empathetic values; an “energizer” that empowers and equip the powerless to lessen the inequality, enhance equity, social justice, and inclusiveness; a “challenger” that interrupts taken-for-granted assumption, break hegemonic power structure; an “enabler” that develops capabilities in self/other to handle complexities, and change agent that can contribute to producing conscious citizen and social transformation (Qutoshi, 2015). From this vantage point, research is not simply a task of seeking new knowledge, but it is a process of re/construction of social and institutional realities by posing a continuous challenge to the hegemonic power structure and inequity entrenched in our society and institution.

Despite having rich cultural diversities of the non-Western historical nations, the colonial power devalues and ignores the local epistemologies (knowing through dancing, singing, storytelling, experiential experience, poetic), sociocultural and historical knowledge and values (Wagle et al., 2019) and thus makes social science research disconnected from the lifeworld of learners. To avoid colonial legacies, we need to explore, recognize, and incorporate our own historical and holistic ways of learning; Shravana (narrating, storytelling, and sharing), Manan (reflective and reflexive practices), and Niddhyasana (deep engagement; connecting mind, body, and soul) (Reagan, 2018). Likewise, multiple and inclusive epistemologies informed by Shad Darsana and Buddhist philosophy (Koirala et al., 2021) were found to be significant in disrupting the hegemonic presence of Western-modern post/positivist epistemology. Wagle et al. (2019) argue that falling under Eurocentric-Westernized educational agenda, Nepali politicians, academics, administrators, and educators attended Western-modern mindsets so that they could not recognize local cosmological knowledge systems, values, and cultural and historical ways of knowing as worthy of including in curricula.

Describing the historical violence and exploitation of colonizing approach to research and education, Cesaire (1955) mentioned that “modern goitrous academics were tools of capitalism and supports of plundering colonialism, all of them responsible, all hateful, all henceforth answerable for the violence of revolutionary action” (pp. 54–55). In this context, a postcolonial autoethnographic researcher needs to uncover these forces to revitalize the life of marginalized others through the deconstruction of intricate networks of colonialism and provides the opportunity to include their voices, languages, narratives, values, and worldviews. It signifies that the postcolonial positionality of autoethnography research focuses on enriching social, cultural, and historical practices of research participants and their communities in which research has been done. They are not only the source of information but also entitled to its benefits to improvise their lives. In doing so, the postcolonial autoethnographer embraces dialectical postures to generate a holistic meaning of the lifeworld of research participants and researchers.

Postcolonial Autoethnography: A Dialectical Space

Postcolonial autoethnographic exploration enables us to uncover how disempowering posture of colonial legacy is embedded in social science research, especially in non-Western countries. It focuses on redressing the long-standing problems of dichotomy: Western or Eastern, local or global, subjective or objective, neutral or value-laden, among others, for a holistic understanding of phenomena. In doing so, dialectical way of knowing plays a significant role. It is a process of continuous construction and deconstruction of the meaning of the phenomena under study to create complex, holistic, and dynamic meaning perspectives in which both you and I become the same soul (Gadamer, 1976, as cited in Wong, 2006). In this regard, postcolonial autoethnography offers different forms of dialectical logics, such as Hegelian, negative, and Lila-Rita.

Hegelian dialectic is the process of meaning-making in the presence of seemingly contradictory situations and arguments. It focuses on attaining an immanent transcendence by rejecting the linear, reductionist, causal, and one-sidedness approach inherent in thinking (Wong, 2006). Its key feature is an acceptance of the dynamism of reality, which is in the process of internal changes due to the struggle of inherently embedded contradictory views, concepts, and attributes (Rescher, 2006), and external forces amplify the changes. It signifies that Hegelian dialectics can significantly create postcolonial space in autoethnography research in which both Western and Eastern, local and global, subjective and objective, and so on are equally valued. In so doing, we need to embrace these contradictory attributes because these constructs are not independent; they are co-arising and may have lost their meaning without the presence of others.

Buddhist philosophers have described the idea of co-arising; among them, a negative dialectic of Nagarjuna (a second-century Madhyamika Buddhist sage) seems to be most valuable because it embraces a nonessentialist view that gives rise to the impermanence, fluidity, and dynamism of reality and thus denies any worldly categories of ideas and things (Luitel, 2013; Westerhoff, 2009). The primary purpose of the Nagarjuna negative dialectics is to illuminate a view that there is no inherent self-existence nature of reality.

Nagarjuna’s principle of dependent co-arising is beneficial for understanding the nature of postcolonial autoethnography research because it has two-fold implications. First, we make sense of self in terms of others and vice versa. Second, we make meaning of non-Western thought with the presence of Western-Eurocentric thought, anticolonial and anti-imperial education with references to colonial and imperial education, inter/subjective epistemology in terms of objective epistemology, local knowledge in terms of global knowledge, localization in terms of globalization and vice versa. In this context, the great physicist Niels Bohr argued that we might not be “easily categorized as belonging to either the East or the West and gave a thought-provoking dictum that the opposite of the profound truth may well be another profound truth” (Wong, 2006, p. 238). Therefore, postcolonial autoethnographer needs to consider the other ways of reasoning, neither this nor that, for exploring an alternative perspective of the phenomenon being researched.

We found that the logic of neither this nor that has a substantial nexus with Advaita Vedanta, a special form of Vedanta Darsana (philosophy) compiled, developed, and circulated by Shankara (Luitel, 2013). It focuses on engendering the wisdom of indeterminate transcendence through a deployment of a concept of neti-neti (not this, not that, neither this nor that) in which there is no space for worldly logic and reasoning (Davis, 2010). The Advaita Vedanta teaches us to challenge hostile attributes of humanism that favor one over another attribute, which finally leads to darkness (Hirst, 2005). According to Advaitin literature, the dynamism of attributes: ideas, texts, philosophy, social and political milieu, and experience play a crucial role in excavating the eternal reality rather than apparent reality (Hirst, 2005). This dialectical reasoning leads us to create an in-between space by incorporating the most debatable categories of Western-Eurocentric thoughts and non-Western historical hermeneutical thoughts. Indeed, postcolonial autoethnography research is neither convergent nor divergent space. It encourages us to dance among the diverse perspectives to unmask the complexity and chaos embedded in the phenomenon under study.

Likewise, the idea of Lila-Rita dialectic of Vedic traditions can be another powerful and empowering construct in the field of social science research that takes into account the agendas of social inclusion, justice, and deep democratic practices (Panikkar, 1977, as cited by Luitel, 2019). The idea of Rita seems equivalent to Western rational and analytical reasoning that follows specific rules and procedures to reach intended goals. In contrast, Lila refers to the mythopoetic representation of Shiva (Hindu god) and Parvati’s (Hindu Goddess) playful acts and Nataraj’s (form of Shiva) dance. It provides a space where researchers can create different postures based on the dynamic relationship of the forces immediately present in the inquiry process. In this regard, postcolonial autoethnographer can use Lila-Rita dialectics as a referent, in which Rita can explain the order developed from the academic, professional, and personal journey, and Lila helps incorporate emergent multiepistemic activities (Luitel, 2019). Indeed, to enrich empathic interactions and fusions of seemingly opposite views, ideas, and categories, dialectical spaces significantly contribute to crate transformative praxis in social science research.

Postcolonial Autoethnography: Transformative Praxis

Postcolonial autoethnography considers emerging and flexible ways of knowing and doing for exploring untold narratives and unheard voices, especially of marginalized groups, through collaboration, cooperation, active participation, dialectic exploration, deep engagement, and action and reflection. A dialectical interplay of data and voices, sense and emotion, descriptions and visions, analytical and perspectival, minds and bodies, theory and practice, intimacy and reciprocity, among others (Denzin, 2019), give rise to informed action, thereby leading to transformative praxis (Maseko, 2018).

Transformative praxis rejects the notion of a linear/causal relationship between seemingly binary constructs that prevail over others; instead, it is a reflexive relationship in which one is complementary to another. A notion of knowing involves a dialectical interplay between action and reflection and theory and practice to endorse new actions (Johns, 2017). In educational enterprise, transformative praxis comprises critical consciousness, culturally responsive critical pedagogy, and emancipatory interest for resolving humanitarian crises by actualizing social justice, equity, empowerment, inclusiveness, and human agency (Freire, 1993, 2005; Grundy, 1987; Navarro, 2018). In this regard, we realize that methodologically, transformative praxis can have a substantial nexus with reflexive research traditions such as narrative research, “participatory action research, art-based research, transformative research, critical policy research, and autoethnographic inquiry, to name a few” (Luitel & Dahal, 2020, p. 1).

In a postcolonial autoethnographic inquiry, we use transformative praxis as an emerging and flexible approach that focuses on unwrapping the disempowering notions such as; curriculum as the product (c.f., curriculum as a praxis), informing pedagogy (c.f., transformative/critical pedagogy); standardized assessment (c.f., holistic assessment), passive recipients (c.f., active practitioners), among other that reducing the chance to be inclusive, empowering, and authentic teacher education. In this process, retrospective, ongoing, and anticipatory forms of reflection can be helpful in meaning-making (Johns, 2017). These three types of reflective practices support critically assessing past events, digging out problems and ways to improve, revive, and enrich present actions, and envisioning future possibilities and challenges to navigate social transformation.

Many researchers (Luitel, 2019; Maseko, 2018; Taylor, 2014) argue that deep engagement through critical reflective practices, a form of praxis, is possible by embracing alternative inclusionary genres and logics: metaphorical, poetic, dialectical, narrative, and nontextual to generate elucidative and thoughtful meaning and action. Metaphorical logic and genres can explore complex and multifaceted concepts by using more familiar sociocultural constructs, proverbs, and sayings embodied in our lifeworld (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003). Poetic logics and genres are helpful in expressing imaginative, futuristic, and thought-provoking ideas embedded in the researcher’s and practitioners’ lifeworld, thereby endorsing viable actions. Likewise, a narrative genre enables us to ventilate our otherwise untold and unheard lived experiences. Finally, nontextual genres can help capture the essence of the phenomenon by using cartoons, pictures, images, and models to represent otherwise neglected views and knowledge (Luitel, 2019; Taylor, 2014). In addition, various forms of dialectical logics, as described in the previous section, help hold together the seemingly contradictory perspectives and values through continuous critical self-reflection and critique of others’ practices for creating new spaces in which no one has given privilege over others, thereby support to enrich an inclusive view of education (Taylor, 2014).

Ethical Considerations in Postcolonial Autoethnography

A discourse on ethical consideration in academic research is essential to make it acceptable and worthy. University and other research institutions provide some procedural ethics and guidelines that must be addressed to engage in the research process. These procedural ethics are summarized as maximizing profit, respecting rights, ensuring inclusivity, and researching with integrity (Carpenter, 2018), which helps induce values and believability of research. Instead, other situational and relational ethical considerations are called into action according to the nature of an inquiry. In this regard, as postcolonial autoethnographic researchers, we need to consider the following ethical standpoints to enrich the value of research.

Insights From Postcolonial Autoethnography

Postcolonial autoethnographic research possibly be a new vibe to autoethnographic research that enunciates a view of research as a political act. The exploration of self and others holding a neutralistic attitude prepares the ground for fostering colonial ideology; thereby, research becomes a tool for masking socially unjust practices, asymmetric power relations, epistemic injustices, and severe economic disparities. These attributes operate in educational institutions, societies, and nations through the fusion of science, technology, and mathematics, again helping to foster the “hegemonic ideology” (Gramsci, 1971). It is only possible to exercise hegemony when a particular ideology deeply saturates the consciousness of practitioners as if it is merely universal and inevitable truth; thus, they become conditioned on hegemonic ideology (Luitel, 2013; van Stam, 2017). In this context, postcolonial autoethnography focuses on disrupting the hegemonic ideology pervasive in educational research and aims to acknowledge and revitalize others’ ways of knowing and researching emanating from the eastern and global south.

We realize that to avoid the disempowering view of research, a political stance of postcolonial autoethnographic research enables us to explore implicit/explicit forces entranced in colonial research paradigms through critical reflective practice and ideological critique that challenge “taken for granted assumption,” distorted representation of history, false narratives, and merely technologization of social sciences (Smith, 2012). The critical reflective practices help bring a shift in frame of reference, a habit of mind and meaning perspective (Mezirow, 1991, 2003, 2012) regarding the social science, a central tenet of postcolonial autoethnography research that possibly dismantles the perpetuated coloniality and opens a new avenue in the field of educational research.

In addition, postcolonial autoethnography research holds an inclusive perspective in which everyone in the world, irrespective of unethical categories, has an equal scholarship to engage in research autonomously (Chilisa et al., 2017) so that they can make wise and conscious decisions and support to enrich empathetic relationships with others. Likewise, embracing relational ontology, epistemic equity, and healing and empathetic values helps foster inclusivity and diversity rather than exclusive duality. Postcolonial autoethnography must ensure the recognition of otherwise neglected voices, history, values, and ways of knowing without revering any form of superiority, hopefully engendering social transformation.

Social transformation is not a static goal (target point) to achieve by implementing a rigidly designed and prespecified framework and method. But it is a continuous and conscious enactment of critical reflection on/with the lifeworld of self and others for envisioning a better world that can revive the distorted history and heal wounded humanity so that every people can enjoy the beauty and virtue of inclusivity, equity, social justice, and emancipation. The highly enunciated nature of postcolonial autoethnography embraces explorative, perspectival, dialectical, and transformative praxis as a process of inquiry. It is informed by inclusive logics and genres that enable us to generate wide ranges of layered textual data or information to interpret and make holistic meanings of the phenomenon under investigation (Richardson & Pierre, 2017), possibly encouraging and energizing us to imagine alternative empowering strategies in social science research.