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Africa Knows! It is time to decolonise minds

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Accepted Paper: A04-01. To panel A04.

Title of paper:

Author:

Nicholas Mugabi (Makerere University).

Long abstract paper:
Social science researchers generate knowledge by engaging in fieldwork where phenomena are studied on a daily basis. While research in the natural sciences can be done with a higher degree of controlled assumptions, study elements and environment. On the contrary, social science research is much more complex and fluid under very dynamic settings, and with less control over research participants. The later presents unique experiences at every moment of fieldwork. This paper is based on my experience of doing fieldwork with smallholder farmers in central Uganda for a period of nine months spread throughout 2017/2018. Adopting the agency-structure theory, I examine the extent to which researchers' agency is optimized while observing the structural boundaries of research ethical practices and field contextual realities. My research reflexivity and positionality are anchored at multiple levels of empirical field work notably: at inception of a research idea, field data collection and dissemination of study results. Each of these levels present varying knowledge and power differences, researcher positioning, best practices and challenges for me as a researcher and to the study. I contend that social science researchers are entwined in a duality of relationship where on one hand they exercise their agency in everyday fieldwork interactions with the research community. On the other hand, researchers' agency is enabled or constrained by the structural rules of the game such as research ethical standards, academic supervisors and mentors' relations, university systems and publishers' requirements. Social science research is a field of continuous learning, thought-provoking, and empowering academic pursuit and career. Thus, researchers must be aware of the ongoing power differences, have a positive attitude to the field challenges; evoke their intuition, subjective position as well as observe the ethical practices in conducting good social science research. Thus, knowledge production within the social science field is an interactive, dynamic and unfolds with the prevails research setting, as well as constructed within the acceptable research standards.

Key word: Researcher, Reflexivity, Positionality, Fieldwork, Social Sciences

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