Inclusive education research has grown over the past decades but is skewed towards Global North contexts, mostly framed by Global North scholars and published in outlets legitimated in the Global North. This Global North hegemony has been challenged, with calls for the field to be decolonised (Walton, 2018). In response to these calls, we ask the following research question:

How can inclusive education research(ers) be informed, challenged and changed by decolonial approaches?

In answering the research question, we pursue these objectives: 

*To develop provocations for the field(work) that serve as prompts for reflection, critique and transformation. 

*To animate these provocations with examples from the presenters’ research.

*To advance the field with suggestions for new ways of being, doing and thinking research.

Decolonial theories offer the theoretical framework. We are informed by Epistemologies of the South (Santos, 2018) and the grounding ideas are the coloniality of being, the coloniality of knowledge, and the coloniality of power, as developed by Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013) and Dastile and Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013). These colonialities are imbricated, and are mutually constitutive, and decolonial perspectives need to address each, and in combination. The coloniality of being renders some people as lesser humans in value and capacity, and thereby their exploitation is enabled and normalised. The coloniality of knowledge refers to epistemological colonisation whereby local, indigenous, and alternative knowledges have been displaced, disciplined or destroyed (Dastile & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013) by assumptions of the superiority and universality of the scientific and technical knowledge of the coloniser. The colonialities of knowledge and of being are enabled by the coloniality of power, which refers to modern global power that is characterised by domination, exploitation, extraction and control, affecting all dimensions of social and ecological existence.

The colonialities of being, knowledge, and power challenge inclusive education research and researchers in the imbricated dimensions of the subjective (issues of being), the epistemic (issues of knowledge) and the political (issues of power). In this paper, we offer  provocations to ourselves and our colleagues in each of these dimensions. 

A decolonial provocation for the subject: What investments and divestments does inclusive education research demand from the researcher?

This provocation engages the inclusive education researcher as a subject and echoes Allan’s (2005, p.293) statement that inclusion is not “‘something we do to a discrete population of children, but rather… something that we must do to ourselves”. With this provocation, we call for a recognition of positionality, especially by Global North researchers, and a willingness to learn and delearn, to embrace academic humility, and to divest from inequitable and exploitative research relations with others.

A provocation about epistemology: Whose and what knowledge counts?

This provocation is prompted by concerns about extractive research practices, deficit assumptions about certain knowers, and the perpetuation of a theory/practice hierarchy. It is a challenge to seeing people as research projects, to theorising their practices, and then re-packaging that theory and selling it back to them. We query the notion of ‘findings’ in inclusive education research, and its foreclosure of further searchings. We ask what an ecology of inclusive education knowledge/s (Santos, 2018) might look for, and how this might shape the field and its concerns differently.

A provocation about power: Who/what is the research for?

This provocation is political. It’s about the importance of work that is transformational and emancipatory. It asks what activism inclusive education demands from us, and challenges the armchair theorist. We question who our research makes a difference for, and who determines what difference should be made. It calls for co-production, partnership and allyship and challenges power relations and structures in the field(work).

This is conceptual research that aims to develop existing knowledge by ‘introducing alternative frames of reference to propose a novel perspective on an extant conceptualization’ (Jaakkola 2020, 23). Building on previous discussions on critical issues in conducting research in the field (Allan and Slee, 2008) and on prior reflections on the role and positionality of the academic and educator when dealing with socially marginalised and oppressed groups (Allan, 2010; Peruzzo, 2020), we develop our methods along three axes: the subjective, the epistemic and the political. The subjective dimension is scrutinised by means of ‘dialogic reflexivity’. Here we build on a critical pedagogy tradition to reflect on informal discussions and vignettes from our own experience as researchers and academics in the field. We use dialogue first as a practical tool to demystify a situation, and as a way of ‘thinking that perceives reality as process, as transformation, rather than as a static entity - thinking which does not separate itself from action’ (Freire, 1996, 73), and second to reflect on our own practices and ways of researching in the field. We acknowledge, as hooks (2010, 43) puts it, that by ‘learning and talking together, we break with the notion that our experience of gaining knowledge is private, individualistic and competitive. By choosing and fostering dialogue, we engage mutually in a learning partnership’. The epistemic dimension is explored by assessing the epistemic limits (Santos, 2018) of prior and current research in inclusive education, and critically engaging with current approaches in the field that validate different ways of knowing and that promote decolonial thinking (Connell, 2011; Walton, 2018; Peruzzo and Allan, 2022). Here we also challenge the hegemony of ‘academic’ or ‘scientific’ knowledge, by exploring and validating the contribution of local and community knowledge, within an ecology of inclusive education knowledges. The political dimension is analysed by means of problematisation as a practical and emancipatory method. Foucault (1984, 389) defines problematisation as the act that makes ‘…possible the transformations of the difficulties and obstacles of a practice into a general problem for which one proposes diverse practical solutions’. By mobilising the provocations in ways that invite and incite transformative practices in the field, we deploy problematisation as a socially just and decolonised method that challenges the linearity of research design and that calls for further dialogue and engagement of the community involved in the study to co-discuss, co-problematise, and co-produce knowledge and change.

The paper intends to open new epistemological and ontological imaginaries, taking into account the colonial legacy and the relations of power that are mobilised in researching in the field of inclusive education. By presenting three provocations for academics and researchers that are informed by a decolonial approach, we aim to make visible the subjective, epistemic and political dimensions of inclusive education, problematising and rethinking the connection between theory, practice, and research in the field. We expect to inform academic practice on three interrelated axes: i) the subjective dimension, offering reflexive tools to engage with ethical questions on the role and positionality of academics during the entire process of research as well as in our own scholarly practices; ii) the epistemic dimension advancing tools, that support the identification of the limits and potential of knowledge used and produced in the process of research as well as the accounts and experiences that are considered valid and valued in the field of inclusive education; iii) the political dimension, opening to different relationships between researchers and communities in co-producing and co-operating towards emancipatory and socially just research. The implications of these provocations are first, to inform the production of research that builds on community knowledge and expertise to critically inform local processes of policy-making and policy enactment. Second, we call for an acknowledgement of the historical legacies of colonialism and hierarchical relations that describe and (re)inscribe many of the theoretical and practical underpinnings of inclusive education as a field. Lastly, our provocations are intended to stimulate reflexive practices and conversations about research processes, and what this could mean for inclusive education researchers.

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