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PDW at AOM - Power, Ethics, Creativity, and Self-care in Postcolonial Fieldwork

  • 1.  PDW at AOM - Power, Ethics, Creativity, and Self-care in Postcolonial Fieldwork

    Posted 07-21-2025 06:38
    Join Our PDW at AOM 2025 – Power, Ethics, Creativity, and Self-care in Postcolonial Fieldwork

    Are you attending the Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting this year? We invite you to our Professional Development Workshop (PDW):

    �� Title: Power, Ethics, Creativity, and Self-care: Complexities in Field Research in Postcolonial Societies
    �� Date: Saturday, July 26, 2025
    �� Time: 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM CEST
    �� Location: Bella Center, Hall A – A1-m3

    Field researchers in postcolonial societies face five significant challenges: (a) Dealing with emergent power differentials reinscribed by colonial regimes; (b) Engaging reflexively with participants while maintaining awareness of the privileges inherent in being a researcher; (c) Sensitively representing the heterogeneous experiences of marginalized communities; (d) Improvising ways to uncover marginalized narratives rooted in unique and often complex social contexts; and (e) Prioritizing self-care to deal with the profound emotional impact of marginalized life histories. 

    This PDW emerges from the critical need to address the ethical, methodological, and structural complexities faced by researchers conducting qualitative field-based data collection in postcolonial societies. Rooted in postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, the workshop addresses the risks of reproducing power inequalities embedded within colonial narratives. Methodologically, the workshop emphasizes ethical reflexivity to examine how researcher positionality, embodied experience, local temporal rhythms, and postcolonial sensitivity shape fieldwork. Simultaneously, it highlights the creative agency required to navigate logistical and material constraints. 

    By bridging these theoretical insights with practical strategies, this workshop seeks to advance a nuanced understanding of the potential of field-based research and ethnography as a site of resistance and reimagined knowledge production. Additionally, it underscores the importance of the researcher's well-being in reshaping research praxis for the postcolonial world. Using a participatory, dialogical format and case-based discussions, the workshop aims to equip participants with practical insights for navigating the complexities of postcolonial field research while fostering ethical and inclusive practices.

    The following themes will be explored-

    1. Navigating ethical complexities in field research: The dangers of exoticization and appropriation of postcolonial subjects; obtaining informed consent only after ensuring participants understand the research objective in the local language; the researcher's sovereignty over collected data; transparency in positioning the self in the research process; handling the recollection of participants' traumatic collective memory; and the ethical representation of the voices of marginalized subjects.

    2. Navigating methodological complexities: The researcher's awareness of their positionality and how it affects data collection and analysis; gaining participants' trust as outsiders; capturing nuanced meanings in translation and transcription; and the challenges of intermittent fieldwork missing the temporal rhythms of the community.

    3. Navigating dominant power structures: Restrictions on access to participants by governmental or local authorities; researchers' data collection and other activities being monitored in sensitive areas; and challenges in publishing in impactful journals without censorship.

    4. The role of creativity in the field: Improvising interviews based on non-verbal cues; dealing with a lack of amenities like electricity; and co-creating knowledge with participant communities.

    5. Post-fieldwork self-care: Mental decompression, emotional well-being, physical recovery, and social reconnection.

    Organizers:
    Ramaswami Mahalingam, University of Michigan
    Tathagata Bhowmik, Case Western Reserve University
    Snehanjali Chrispal, Monash University
    Poonam Barhoi, Institute of Rural Management Anand
    Manan Pathak, UPES School of Business
    Akhil SG, Case Western Reserve University

    --
    Tathagata Bhowmik (he/him/his)
    Ph.D. Candidate | Organizational Behavior
    Weatherhead School of Management | Case Western Reserve University
    (216) 673-8704
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tathagata-bhowmik-932031119/
    Writer/Director, Termite| https://www.watchmyfilm.com/movie/termite
    Musician| https://open.spotify.com/artist/6joestBxrvM7Zwa6VATdkg