Decolonizing Experimental Research and Opportunities to Challenge White Supremacy

Abstract: Background/Purpose: White supremacy has shaped experimental research to normalize and privilege Eurocentric perspectives. This has led to Eurocentric views colonizing knowledge production to produce ignorance by categorizing Indigenous Peoples and non-Western perspectives as inferior. Ignorance reproduces white supremacy through the distortion or evasion of colonial and racial matter via white logics of objectivity and generalization. A white logic of objectivity presumes "objective" knowledge production is reserved for White researchers. This false sense of objectivity normalizes whiteness to colonize knowledge production by dismissing and ignoring the voices of Indigenous Peoples' and individuals deemed non-White as biased and "subjective." A white logic of generalization assumes and desires identification of universal principles from scientific inquiries to apply all groups and context. However, the white logic of generalization categorizes deviations from the White population and whiteness as exceptions. The white logic of generalization ignores historical contexts of colonialism and racism, which has differential impacts on groups and depends on sociopolitical context. These white logics are deeply intertwined with perceptions of "what research should look like," which has stifled inclusive knowledge production and propagated white supremacy through ignorance. Since social work is social justice, it is critical for social work researchers to address how white supremacy explicitly and implicitly informs methodological standards.

Format/Content: This roundtable will outline complex issues of experimental research and begin a conversation on how to decolonize experimental methods in social work. The first panelist will begin with an introduction to how white supremacy has influenced methodology with an emphasis on experimental research. The second panelist will discuss how the ideology of white supremacy has generated the white logics of objectivity and generalization. The third panelist will address the historical positionality of social work, white saviorism, and the whitewashing of social work history. The fourth panelist will discuss how white supremacy, social work, and experimental methods converge in ways that avoid genuine investigation into colonial and racial matters. Finally, all panelists will offer opportunities for disrupting notions of objectivity and generalization to advance experimental research and design. More specifically, panelists will discuss community-based participatory research, data sovereignty, decolonial and race critical perspectives, and social justice focused research as potential avenues researchers can incorporate into experiments to improve their design, interventions, implementation, analysis, and interpretations. Panelists will also propose ethical consideration for researchers with the understanding social work is social justice. In closing, the panelists will field questions and facilitate discussion with roundtable participants on decolonizing experimental methods.

Roundtable Goal: Our goal is to discuss how to decolonize and advance hegemonic experimental methodology in social work and incorporate other methodologies and ways of (un)knowing to challenge traditional social work research that often pathologizes the communities it seeks to serve. ties it seeks to serve.