Unravelling Research is about the ethics and politics of knowledge production in the social sciences at a time when the academy is pressed to contend with the historical inequities associated with established research practices. Written by an impressive range of scholars whose work is shaped by their commitment to social justice, the chapters grapple with different methodologies, geographical locations and communities and cover a wide range of inquiry, including ethnography in Africa, archival research in South America and research with marginalized, racialized, poor, mad, homeless and Indigenous communities in Canada. Each chapter is written from the perspective of researchers who, due to their race, class, sexual/gender identity, ability and geographical location, labour at the margins of their disciplines. By using their own research projects as sites, contributors probe the ethicality of long-established and cutting-edge methodological frameworks to theorize the indivisible relationship between methodology, ethics and politics, elucidating key challenges and dilemmas confronting marginalized researchers and research subjects alike.

Teresa Macías is an associate professor in the School of Social Work, York University. Her scholarly interests include transnational human rights regimes, poststructuralism, decolonial thought and social work education. She has done research and published on a diversity of topics, including human rights policies in Latin America, truth and reconciliation commissions, state compensation policies, nation-building, torture, issues of representation, critical pedagogy, neoliberalism in social work, research methodology and research ethics. Dr. Macías came to Canada from Chile as a political refugee.

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“The scholars in this book make it their mission to find an ethical place to stand in social science research even as they acknowledge its impossibility and never stop worrying. Displaying an attentiveness to the politics of knowledge production and an uncompromising accounting of their own complicities, the contributors offer tentative paths out of the bind posed by their inbetweenness.”

Sherene H. Razack, University of California, Los Angeles (from the Afterword)

“Without a doubt, this volume constitutes a major contribution to the research literature. Its primarily Canadian content, from the perspective of academics who are marginalized, is unique, and the pan-cultural reach of the literature is definitely unique.”

Sobia Shaheen Shaikh, School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland

“This book makes a serious advance in the state-of-the-art research; namely in its commitments to undertake a decolonial, intersectional analysis of the politics and ethics of research.”

Mehmoona Moosa-Mitha, Associate Professor University of Victoria