Acknowledging privilege through encounters with difference: Participatory Learning and Action techniques for decolonizing methodologies in Southern contexts

摘要

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) research techniques can contribute todecolonising methodologies by alerting participants to privilege and marginalisationthrough encounters across difference. Consciousness of privileges is oftenobscured and naturalised as part of normative expectations of everyday living.This paper contends that no one is exempt from interrogating their positionalityand their beliefs, and that PLA research techniques can provide the means bywhich people can be confronted with privileges and marginality through encounteringthe ‘other’. A case study conducted across Higher Education Institutionsin South Africa is presented to show how PLA techniques can make a substantialcontribution to processes of research. The case study shows how PLAresearch techniques make it possible to bring people together to confront differentialprivileges, thus giving people the opportunity to become both insiders andcommitted outsiders in their interactions across differences.