Towards racially just research and scholarship practices

Credit: DC Studio via Adobe Stock.

21 October 2025

By Wilton Lodge

In recognition of Black History Month, this reflection explores what it means to engage in racially just research and scholarship. Drawing on the works of Du Bois, Fanon and Tuhiwai Smith, it considers how power, history and epistemic privilege shape knowledge production. Through three key shifts – adopting racially just epistemologies, practising reflexivity and rejecting deficit models – I invite educators to reimagine scholarship as a space for justice.

From eugenics-informed IQ studies to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, research has harmed racially devalued communities through extractive methodologies. Even today, work that names structural racism is often dismissed as polemic, while scholars of colour are scrutinised for being “too emotional”. As Du Bois observed, racialised individuals often see themselves “through the eyes of others”, a phenomenon he refers to as ‘double consciousness’. Tuhiwai Smith reminds us that ‘research’ remains a deeply fraught term in Indigenous contexts. These insights urge us to rethink how knowledge is legitimised, and by whom.

Adopting racially just epistemologies

Educational research has long been shaped by Eurocentric paradigms, particularly positivist and empiricist traditions that prioritise objectivity and generalisability. These approaches have often marginalised experiential ways of knowing found in Indigenous and Global majority communities. Racially just scholarship begins with an epistemological critique that asks whose knowledge is legitimised, which traditions are excluded and how research can honour plural ways of knowing.

Fanon argued that colonisation operates not only physically but epistemically. Mignolo calls for “epistemic disobedience”, refusing the monopoly of Western thought, while de Sousa Santos proposes an “ecology of knowledges”, where diverse epistemologies coexist. These frameworks challenge the idea of neutrality and expose how dominant norms can uphold racial hierarchies. For instances, Indigenous knowledge is often omitted from science curricula because it doesn’t align with empiricist standards.

Racially just research demands structural change rather than symbolic inclusion. It requires rethinking who produces knowledge, how research is conducted and for whose benefit.

Questions to consider

• What kinds of knowledge do you value in your work?
• Whose voices are centred, and whose are missing?
• How might I honour multiple ways of knowing?

Practicing positionality and reflexivity

Reflexivity is not a checklist; it is an ethical stance. Researcher identity is shaped by factors such as race, class, gender sexuality, disability, age, and institutional power. To be racially just, we must name our standpoints and make them visible in our scholarship.

Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality helps us understand how overlapping identities shape research. In Black Feminist Thought, Collins notes that marginalised scholars often hold standpoints that reveal power relations with clarity. Fine describes reflexivity as “working the hyphens”: the spaces between self and other, power and vulnerability.

Emotions and discomfort are not distractions; they are data. Reflexivity is strengthened through dialogue, participant feedback and institutional cultures that support critical reflection.

Questions to consider

• How do I position myself in relation to the people and contexts I study?
• Where do my assumptions and privileges appear in the research process?
• Am I listening deeply, or leading through my own lens?

Rejecting the deficit model

The deficit model assumes certain groups are inherently lacking, a narrative rooted in colonial ideologies. In education, this appears as “gaps”, “underachievement” or “disadvantage”.

In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon illustrated how colonial powers constructed the colonised as deficient. Gillborn and others show how contemporary policy continues to frame racialised children as problems to be solved. Tuck and Yang caution that “pain narratives are always incomplete”. While exposing harm is vital, focusing solely on deficit risks pathologising communities.

Racially just research must also capture wholeness: joy, creativity and resistance. A desire-centred framework affirms agency and self-determination.

Questions to consider

• Do my research questions assume lack, or affirm strength?
• What wisdoms and practices exist within the communities I engage with?
• How might my work contribute to dignity, justice and transformation?

Final reflection

“Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.” — Fanon

Our scholarly mission is not just to study justice but to enact it. Every research choice carries ethical weight. Racially just scholarship refuses epistemicide, honours multiple ways of knowing, and stands in the power of accountable, transformative inquiry.