Black History 365: Public Lecture Series - Riadh Ghemmour

Black History 365: Public Lecture with Riadh Ghemmour

Learning Skills Programme

Our Black History 365 public lecture series holds a particular focus on providing platforms and amplifying the counter narratives.

Riadh Ghemmour is a doctoral researcher in education and a teaching assistant affiliated to the University of Exeter. His doctoral project investigates Algerian EFL students’ lived experiences of learning about research methods and writing MA dissertations using Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy as a framework. A particular focus of this research involves interrogating issues of power, voice, and the reproduction of the social world and patterns within classroom.

Riadh’s scholarship and practice is also grounded in decolonisation, Indigenousness, anti-racism, social justice education and critical theories in education. He is the co-founder of Decolonial Dialogues which is a shared space advancing understanding of decolonisation across disciplines. He is also part of the Exeter Decolonising Network and an associate at the MA-Education consultancy. Riadh is passionate about poetry, storytelling, and Indigenous folklores.

Navigating decolonisation and Indigenousness in research and the academy  

In the introductory pages of her seminal book titled “Decolonising Methodologies”, Smith (2012) explains that research is probably one of the dirtiest words in Indigenous vocabulary. The presentation unpacks how academic research is often conflated with colonial legacies and imperialist attitudes for Indigenous communities. It further explores how academic research needs to be decolonised through a lens of Indigenousness with focus on interrogating issues of power, positionality and ethics.  

In fact, some important questions which the session poses are: why decolonising academic research? Whose responsibility is it to decolonise? And how can the process of decolonisation and Indigenous ontologies can help us reimagine research praxis beyond Eurocentric ways of knowing and being.  

Riadh will also draw on his doctoral project to share some practical guidance to link epistemological and theoretical questions to practice.  

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