Resistance Ethics for a Decolonial Sociolinguistics

ABSTRACT Ethics is among those institutional categories of the research process that are perceived as inherently motivated by good intentions to protect, respect and safeguard the dignity and interests of research participants. However, the entanglements of the institution of research ethics with the broader project of the coloniality of universalism are rarely questioned. In responding to the lead article of this Dialogue, I posit that there are several discursive tropes in the institution of research ethics that reveal and hide—in equal measure—their perceived benefits on the one hand, and the global politics of knowledge on the other. I argue that though research ethics is seen as a natural universal category in research, it does not have equivalents in some cultures, nor does it translate easily into most languages, for example, those from Southern Africa. This calls for the need to trouble the normative construct of research ethics. In this response, I deploy insights of decolonising and radical resistance ethics to extend the Dialogue's concern with the politics of ethics.