Decolonial Learning

A preparatory and ongoing phase in community-based research in which researchers — typically affiliated with Global North institutions or corporations — work to understand the historical, political, and cultural context of a community before setting a research agenda, and cede authorship of that agenda to local organizations. In accessibility research with marginalized communities in the Global South, decolonial learning counters patterns in which technology research is imported as a ready-made frame, and is a precondition for genuine partnership rather than extraction.