For an ethic of care: in search of decolonial paths for social research with subalternized groups

Abstract

When the social scientist notes that a key part of the world’s knowledge is ignored, silenced, made invisible - something in the modus operandi of the traditional social research starts to cause him immense discomfort. The ethical question remains stuck in his throat: how to remove them - this knowledge and their authors – from this indolent place where they are no more than imperfect shadows of the northern knowledge? How to do it without entangling the subordination even more, furthering the marginalization? Is it possible to do less invasive, asymmetrical and extractive research? To indicate a concern about how we observe, reflect, show, describe the social world and afterwards return to it, should be considered a part of a careful investigation instead of the careless paradigm that makes up the epistemological tessiture with which we usually do science. One might even say that careful research is hyper-self-conscious of its myopia and blind spots which are being sought and sketched by many Latin American collectives dedicated to thinking about methodologies that are other.