Decolonizing Computing and Research as a Third Space of Academic Sovereignty

Introduction

In response to the changing political, racial, cultural, and social climate, the Ancestral Computing Research Project (ACRP) was created to strengthen spaces of knowledge creation and research praxis to create and sustain decolonial approaches for how computing is designed, created, used, and discarded (López-Quiñonez et al., 2023). As scholars of color, coming from multiple indigenous traditions from Grand River Six Nations; Keweenaw Bay Indian Community; Taíno/Arawak-Lukumí; Taíno/Arawak; Mende/Yoruba- African American; Caxcan Xicanx Izkalohteka; Black African American; Trique Chicana; Black African American Massai we decided to engage in decolonial research as a space of honoring ourselves and our ancestral lineages. ACRP explored possible ways to decolonize computing praxis and research. We, as a group engaged in a collaborative process to establish a space of convening among four higher education institutions located in Puerto Rico, California, Northern Michigan, and Washington D.C. (López-Quiñonez et al., 2023).

Our subsequent research endeavors to transform spaces of Academic praxis that embrace decolonizing research (Absolon, 2022; Mignolo, 2021; Smith, 2021; Soja, 1996; Wilson, 2008). We experience what Bruyneel (2007) presents as the third space of sovereignty as a process that serves as:

This Third Space allows us to unpack the colonial legacy of Academia and its impact on scholars of color. In our experiences, the training within our respective disciplines to conduct research and publish in Academia provoked an uneasy double consciousness (Du Bois, 1994) that is troubling. Du Bois (1994) describes double consciousness as “a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (p. 38). Haynes Writer and Watson (2019) researched barriers to recruitment and retention that scholars of color face in Academia. In their literature review, Haynes Writer and Watson (2019) found the most common barriers for scholars of color were a. tokenism; b. isolation; c. exclusion; d. marginalization; e. invisibility; f. hyper-visibility; g. lack of mentors; and h. skepticism and criticism of research. All these barriers create uneasiness for scholars of color (Haynes Writer & Watson, 2019), an uneasiness that we feel we cannot be our true authentic selves.

Addressing the uneasiness of this double consciousness (Du Bois, 1994) allows us to become knowledgeable of the colonial legacy within Academia and allows us to embrace our Ancestral Knowledge Systems (Moreno-Sandoval et al., 2016) and identities in order to create our own narratives that honor ourselves and our communities. Moreno-Sandoval et al. (2016) define Ancestral Knowledge Systems as “a process of inquiry that unearths Indigenous social constructions of observing, understanding, being, and participating in the world from an ancestral homeland, dynamically flowing from one generation to another” (p. 20).