Decolonisation of education through citizen science: Slow science, not slow violence. The case study Diamonds on the Soles of Their Feet

Abstract

Citizen science projects are vulnerable to top-down directivity, and driven by assumptions of one-directional ambitions with regard to capacity building and knowledge production. Through the story of Ruth, we discuss how deep-seated legacies of inequality influence the politics of knowledge and explore what we, involved in citizen science projects, could learn from the politics of knowledge as it emerges from decolonisation struggles-particularly as manifested within the academy. Most universities are orientated around Western knowledge regimes that mute many other ways of knowing and ordering the world. Significant inroads have been made when writing on decolonising education but less is known about the effects of the colonisation of state institutions and the disturbances, interferences, and disruptions to organising, sharing, and creating knowledge in public spheres outside of these same universities. These disturbances affect the personal and collective histories of people so that when they are part of research linked to the university, their everyday lives become enmeshed with institutional hegemonies. Research is not dissociated from its deeply entrenched colonial roots. If decolonisation means going deeper into the legitimacy of knowledge and who and how this is being defined, then this must include the process of producing that knowledge outside the bastions of power.