Workshop: Decolonial Research Approaches

How can we foster collective practices and build the collective capacities for research grounded in intraconnectedness?

All interested scholars and reflective practitioners are invited to explore the above question in light of a potential upcoming book project that has an initial research focus on the African continent and an outlook of the pre-conference of the 2026 World Ethic Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.

Organizers and faciliators:

Dr. Mohamed El-Mongy (Egypt) has ample experience in research in the Nile Basin and beyond, mediation and reconciliation practices.

PhD cand. Luea Ritter, brings experience in resilience and coherence building in cross-sector collaboration and multilateral processes, & research on the Nile basin.

Dr. Anaïs Sägesser, is a master's student at the ZASB and teaches on knowledge integration at the University of St.Gallen,

All co-facilitators are reflective practitioners co-leading and part of the World Ethic Forum.

Rationale

At the World Ethic Forum, we feel called to explore decolonial research practices grounded in an ontology of radically shared aliveness, care, and kinship. Embracing diverse cosmologies, we seek to create a dialogical platform where different knowledge systems and practices can interact, co-evolve, and enrich both academic and lived practices, building, e.g on Denscombe, 2024.

Historically, knowledge was rooted in an intimate relationship with the Earth understood as living and intraconnected, inherently local and ecological. However, the rise of Western colonial science and perpetuating patterns reframed this situated knowledge as "Indigenous"—a term often used to contrast with so-called universal, scientific standards (Ringera, 2024; Somet, 2019; Sarr, 2019; Eisenstein, 2013). Colonial systems enforced the dominance of Western epistemology, discrediting others as "primitive" or "obsolete" and embedding this hierarchy in contemporary academic institutions (Jain, 2002; Akomolafe, 2022).

Yet, Indigenous knowledge is neither static nor simplistic. As Davis and Coopes (2022) highlight in their Indigenous Knowledge Lab (IKL), such knowledge is deeply ecological, intergenerational, and encoded in both stories and biology. It respects the kinship between humans and more-than-human life, and is rooted in a living memory that includes trauma passed through generations—within human bodies and e.g. water (Davis et al., 2022; Marrie, 2020).

Reframing scientific understanding thus involves unlearning colonial frameworks and healing from epistemic trauma (Ringera, 2024). True integration requires integrating native tools, embodied practices, wider ways of knowing, lived experience and external validation (Mugyabuso, 2024; Walter, 2024). This shift opens possibilities for new ways of knowing and being—ones potentially more capable of addressing today’s global challenges than the current dominant paradigms.

Workshop Flow:

9:30 Opening Circle – Welcome, intentions, grounding.

9:45 Check-in and get to know each other

10:15 World Café

12:30 Lunch Break

14:00 Synthesis

16:00 Next steps - Reflection, next steps, and co-visioning.

16:30 End

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