Decolonising Doctoral Supervision and Research at UCL

Providing opportunities for doctoral supervisors and students at UCL to learn from peers who have begun to work with decolonial methodologies, supervision practices and pedagogies.

The project team employed Safaf Yasir, a PhD candidate in EPS working on decolonial methodologies, to conduct a literature review of decolonial approaches to research and supervision. The literature review resulted in an annotated bibliography, which now holds over 100 titles and summaries of resources. It has been organised according to the following themes: 

• Decolonising research produced by various collectives and universities
• Research on decolonising PhD supervision and research: Epistemic Decolonisation and Inclusivity, Critical Reflexivity and Power Dynamics and Structural and Institutional Transformation
• Research on critical and feminist approaches

The annotated bibliography was used to plan a full-day workshop event on 18 July. The workshop covered the following themes: 

• Decolonising doctoral supervision at UCL
• Disrupting the coloniality of knowledge in a PhD literature review
• Enacting decolonial research methodologies
• Beyond coloniality in the communication of PhD knowledge: language and accessibility.

The workshop provided colleagues with a space to examine their ideas about research and how they may contribute to our views on supervision practice. It encouraged considering diverse definitions of decolonisation/decoloniality and how these can help us understand the different ways in which research supervision must and can be decolonised. The workshop aimed to identify key moments in doctoral supervision that (re)produce hierarchies of knowledge and practice, explore ways to question, interrupt and unlearn supervision practices, share examples of critical supervision praxis and learn from each other.

“The importance of involving different voices, accepting and welcoming the ‘messy’ data and always be open to difficult discussions to understand and challenge the boxes we place our thinking in”. Workshop attendee

A blog post “Decolonising Research Supervision: A Journey Towards Transformative Praxis” will be produced to share more details about the workshop. 

This project was designed by three staff members from different IOE departments: CPA, PHD, and EPS, who have been working to develop their decolonial praxis. Planning the workshops provided the team with structured opportunities to share their knowledge and expertise and to build connections between their departments. This will also help establish the foundation for a unified approach to decolonizing practices within the IOE Faculty and may lead to a future project encompassing the entire IOE or UCL, such as a Decolonising Research Network.

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