Untaming/untameable tongues: methodological openings and critical strategies for tracing raciality

Abstract

ABSTRACT Race theories generate method-making and onto-epistemological connections central to inquiry. In this article, the authors share a conversation that created methodological openings about what constitutes ‘racially just’ in this particular moment of qualitative research. Is the call for ‘racially just’ a form of disruption or rupture? Is it a logic of inclusion, or a logic of obliteration? While the racial character of knowledge systems has become more explicit, it is important to consider how the analytics of raciality, a social scientific apparatus that produces racial subjugation, is already configured and entangled within sociopolitical systems. Following the work of Denise Ferreira da Silva, the authors argue that attention to raciality requires a different set of critical strategies for troubling ‘racially just’ approaches in the name of racial justice, asking more of themselves, of each other, and of their collective aims to unsettle colonial and racial logics within and outside of higher education institutions. The potential for transforming research practises and the teaching of research methods, by building on radical women of colour feminisms, are also discussed.