Following the increasing emphasis in the classroom and in the field to sensitize researchers and students to diverse epistemologies, methods, and methodologies - especially those of women, minority groups, former colonized societies, indigenous people, historically oppressed communities, and people with disabilities, author Bagele Chilisa has written the first research methods textbook that situates research in a larger, historical, cultural, and global context with case studies from around the globe to make very visible the specific methodologies that are commensurate with the transformative paradigm of research and the historical and cultural traditions of indigenous peoples. Chapters cover the history of research methods, colonial epistemologies, research within postcolonial societies, relational epistemologies, emergent and indigenous methodologies, Afrocentric research, feminist research, language frameworks, interviewing, and building partnerships between researchers and the researched. The book comes replete with traditional textbook features such as key points, exercises, and suggested readings, which makes it ideally suited for graduate courses in research methods, especially in education, health, women's studies, cultural studies, sociology, and related social sciences.

Author Biography

Bagele Chilisa holds a Masters of Arts degree in Research Methodology. The degree covers Research Design, Statistics and Measurement from the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her PhD in Policy, Planning and Evaluation, also from the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Botswana. In the past 16 years years, she has taught the following courses to graduate and undergraduate students: Research Methods; Educational Evaluation; Constructing Questionnaires and Conducting Surveys; Project Design and Evaluation; Policy Planning and Evaluation. She is one of the founding members of the Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia Research Association and served as President of the Botswana Educational Research Association from 2000 to 2002. She is also editor of the Botswana Educational Research Journal, board member of the University of Botswana Centre for Scientific Research and Indigenous Knowledge and Innovations and the University of Botswana Research Ethics Committee.