Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion

Key Insights

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  Diversity in research teams does not inherently guarantee inclusivity or counter systemic oppression.

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  Awareness of power and identity positionality often leads to feeling stuck without clear action steps.

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  Our ways of being deeply shape our epistemologies and methodologies in research.

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  Colonial Western ways of being emphasize objectification and individualism, limiting emancipatory knowledge production.

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  Indigenous knowledge systems, like those of the iBio people, view knowledge as relational and emergent from relationships.

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  Songs and oral traditions can serve as valid research methodologies tied to indigenous ways of knowing.

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  Systems of value influence which knowledge is considered legitimate or beneficial, often marginalizing community knowledge.

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  Immigrant communities bring preserved ways of being that produce measurable health and social benefits.

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  Positive deviance in communities reveals untapped local wisdom that can guide effective interventions.

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  Radical participatory research requires researchers to relinquish control and let communities define methods based on their own ways of being.

Notable Quotes