Interactive Qualitative Research Workshop: Challenging Extractivist Praxis in Ethnographic Theologies and Qualitative Research

This workshop will support theological researchers to assess themes of power, reflexivity, agency, and accountability in their qualitative and ethnographic research projects. Writers, artists, students, instructors, and practitioners from diverse backgrounds are invited to explore strategies that challenge extractivist postures in ethnographic theology and qualitative research methods. Extractivist approaches foreground non-reciprocal knowledge acquisition that offers little to no benefit to those communities who are subjects of and/or partners in research and to the contexts from which academic and practical knowledge is mined. The workshop features interactive and small and large group discussions and foregrounds the conference theme of freedom by querying dynamics of ownership, access, interpretation and the afterlives of projects in ethnographic theological research as well as other relevant ecclesial and academic contexts such as conferences, classrooms, and congregations.