As part of my dissertation project 'Inclusive Education in Rural Ghana - an ethnographic study in postcolonial relations', I seek to pursue a theoretical and methodological interest, using comparison as a methodology to address the complex problem of doing ethnographic research on inclusive education in postcolonial relations.

Disability and inclusive education are being constructed as an unequal international phenomenon by both academic research (Singal, 2013) and major organizations such as the World Health Organization (World Healt Organization, n.d. 10 facts on disability) or UNESCO (n.d. Global education monitoring report 2020). This leads to developments that describe inclusive education as an 'international movement' (Artiles & Dyson, 2005) and a 'development issue' (Chataika, 2019), highlighting the impact of disability and inclusive education solutions as important for human rights and sustainable development. This constructive basis is highly problematic when contextualized in postcolonial relations, as these tend to reproduce colonial patterns in terms of 'stereotypical dualism' (Andrien & Hulme, 1993). Singal and Muthukrishna (2014) refer to persons with disabilities and note that the discourse describes them as "backward, victims of society, neglected or hidden" (p. 294) with the aim of liberation and emancipation through the "'enlightened', 'civilising' work of Northern scholars and agencies." (ibid.) This is even more problematic as the concept of inclusive education needs to be contextualized due to different understandings of inclusion (Dyson, 1999), disability (Singal, 2013) and education (Singal, 2013) from context to context. The lack of universality thus opens up a space to connect with colonial continuities. It is therefore of theoretical interest to gain insights into the understanding of these phenomena in postcolonial relations, and thus to be able to describe understandings of inclusive education. I have chosen Ghana as my research site for practical research reasons.

In addition to the theoretical research interest, which again focuses on inclusive educational practice in rural Ghana, the methodological research interest asks how the perspective on this is constructed, as this is of high interest due to the critique of inclusive education "from the West to the rest" (Grech, 2011). Thus, the relationship between the object of research (what?) and construction of positionality or perspectivity (how do I look and how is the perspective constructed?) is central.

The research design, which tends to follow orientations, narratives and discourses that can be located in the Global North (Werning et al., 2016) or the West (Grech, 2011), thus becomes itself the object of critical inquiry. The research design itself is thus understood as fragile and fluid, in order to rethink questions of postcolonial relations, understood as powerful, exclusive and hierarchical, towards an inclusive and open scientific negotiation.

The methodology of comparison offers orientation to this theoretical-methodological problem. The ‘productivity of difference’ (2015, p. 108), according to Parreira do Amaral, not only enables the perception of what is one's own or what is different by distancing oneself from the familiar. This productivity also opens up spaces for reflection in which the relational construction of self and other (Othering: Said, 1978) can be critically examined and discussed. (ibid.)

The presentation aims first to outline the research design and the inherent problems, and then to take a closer look at the methodological possibilities of the ‘productivity of difference’ (Parreira do Amaral 2015, 108) by asking the following questions:

1. What possibilities does the method(ology) of comparison offer? How can comparison be used profitably?
2. How can the construction of difference, which tends to be problematic, be made productive and used profitably for the research object?
3. How does the specificity of postcolonial relations construct the practice of comparison, and what are its orientations?

Situating myself within the ethnographic paradigm, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in rural Ghana twice, each lasting approximately two months, in 2017 and 2019. After establishing access through continuous presence, I encountered Paul (pseudonymized), introduced by villagers as a mentally and physically disabled boy. Subsequently, I accompanied Paul to school, attended lessons, engaged with teachers, and explored various forms of schooling and activities. Insights were gained through participant observation, observational participation, and ethnographic interviews. (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019) The ethnographic paradigm, inherently constructive, involves observations based on the researcher's perceptions and the translation of observed phenomena into field notes. Considering inclusive education as relational, I grappled with the theoretical and methodological challenges of ethnographic research in this context. The postcolonial setting, my positionality as a white researcher from the global North, and the non-transferable nature of inclusive education theory led me to question how ethnographic knowledge production can be conducted. I therefore decided to view subjectivity necessarily as an epistemic value as ethnography itself has been described as “hauntingly personal” (Van Maanen, 2011, p. xiii). While ethnographic discourse emphasizes participant observation as a method for knowledge production, it lacks methodological guidance or description on how this process constructs and produces knowledge. This gap presents an opportunity to introduce comparison as a methodological frame in comparative international educational research, a tool for analysis and reflection through the ‘productivity of difference’ (Parreira do Amaral, 2015). The personal style in writing ethnographic field notes, expressing subjectivity (Emerson et al., 2011), is analyzed by detaching from normal and familiar circumstances to question them (Parreira do Amaral, 2015). This involves examining irritations, questions, or strong emotions in the data to understand their sources. By employing this analysis, I situate myself and my perspective in the analysis process, using it as a point of comparison. In summary, empirical material is analyzed using Grounded Theory Methodology (Charmaz, 2006) at two levels: the practice of inclusive education and how observations and experiences affect me as a researcher and person. This analysis aims to challenge the exclusive "from West to the rest" (Grech, 2011) inclusion discourse.

I. Comparison offers a starting point for reflecting and analyzing one's own and the other's as well as the common third party, the so-called tertium comparisonis. (Adick, 2008) Reflecting and analyzing the constructed domination of difference is particularly important in postcolonial relations. The tertium comparisonis also opens up different possibilities of comparison that are detached from so-called methodological nationalism and thus aim at objects of comparison (comparata) other than those of the nation-state. (Chernilo, 2011) Comparison is used as a (complex) method of systematization with the aim of gaining knowledge (Hofstadter & Sander, 2013). II. The focus on the idiographic (the particular) (Noah et al., 1998) draws attention to inclusive educational practice, which runs counter to the “from the West to the rest” (Grech 2011) understanding of ethnographic researchers and theory. Against the background of the 'productivity of difference' (Parreira do Amaral 2015), the focus on irritations in the data material is used as a door opener for reflection and analysis that address questions of positionality, representation and the construction and interpretation of difference. The approach aims at a postcolonial informed description of inclusive education, with its constitutive feature - participation - serving as the tertium comparationis (Adick, 2008). III. The comparative foils are based on the object theory of inclusive education as a "from the West to the rest" (Grech 2011) dynamic, as well as the ethnographic researcher's inherent assumptions associated with it. These are fundamentally oriented towards an understanding of inclusive education gained from reforms and developments in the Global North (Werning et al. 2016.) or, as described by Muthukrishna and Engelbrecht (2018), in " resource-rich model[s; editor's note] of support provision in high income countries for learners" (p. 1). Without a critical-reflective analysis of the knowledge-generating comparative practice, a self-legitimizing knowledge cycle is (re)produced.

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