Course Description
Welcome to our seminar, Demystifying the Research Process: Decolonizing Methods in Academic Research! We seek to increase representation of marginalized students in grad school and research programs, and build a community of researchers of color. As research is an extremely isolating and exclusive process at this institution, we work to dismantle this. Furthermore, students of color perform low rates of research at this research institution, alongside research programs on campus having low representation and acceptance rates of students of color. In other words, marginalized students receive little to no mentorship or access to resources to conduct their research/projects. We exist to bridge this gap.

Our events/workshops are open to the public (on or off campus) and held regularly, in order to be as accessible to a wider range of an audience as possible. Part of how we’re cultivating this community is to provide necessary tools and resources – such as mentorship, research/funding app workshops (McNair, Haas, SURF, etc.), panels, research methodology and decolonizing research workshops – for marginalized students to envision research significant to their identities and communities with which they engage.

This course centers the politics of decolonization in teaching research methodologies and pedagogies. We situate research historically as a site of violence and colonization against marginalized communities, to collectively reclaim control over communal knowledge and practices.

Course Requirements
This course consists of interactive lectures and workshops, undergraduate and graduate student panels and guest speakers, submitting research proposal drafts to continuously develop your research, completing a final research proposal, and an in-class final presentation of your research proposal at the end of the semester. Attendance is mandatory; students must miss no more than two unexcused class sessions to pass the course. Students are required to visit office hours at least once over the semester.

Course Objectives
Students will become acquainted with sophisticated approaches to conducting academic research as an undergraduate researcher of color. We will equip students with key approaches and methodologies in designing and conducting research in humanities, social science, and STEM research. Students will develop key skills of the research process, including: designing complex and critical research questions, creating literature reviews, deconstructing and analyzing primary archives, using theoretical frameworks, and designing methodologies (ex. literary analysis, policy analysis, surveys, and interviews).

Students will be exposed to existing alternative forms of knowledge (cultural, experiential, spiritual) while deconstructing the process of knowledge production altogether, in order to integrate methods of decolonization into their research processes.

Triggering Course Material
Much of the course, particularly the Decolonizing Methods workshop series, will situate research historically as a site of violence and trauma against marginalized communities – much of which will include racial and sexual violence. In order to prevent additional trauma, you are excused from this class or section of this class. If you feel comfortable doing so, please email or speak to me privately if you need to be accommodated in any way.

Students and community members (non-students) can enroll on a first come, first serve basis. Please email Istifaa (iamistifa@berkeley.edu) for more details.