Decolonising Research

[Re]claiming Forgotten Narratives of the South Asian Collection at Kedleston Hall A student-staff collaboration

Abstract

This paper presents a group reflection between students and academics whilst working on a summer research project. Our aim is to reflect upon the forgotten narratives of the South Asian collection exhibited at Kedleston Hall, a National Trust property in Derbyshire. The spatial presence of these objects in the Hall is being reviewed by the National Trust considering current decolonising initiatives. This is a process we are contributing to by 
co-designing a framework for a serious (educational) game, which aims to engage younger audiences with the collections, using a decolonial lens to support this. The authors are two students from the BArch; one student from the MArch; a PhD candidate who is also a lecturer, and an established academic. Our partnership is cemented by promoting inclusivity (as a student-staff partnership); broadening understandings of heritage; and supporting a decolonial approach to research. Our long-term aim, which exceeds the content of this article, is to produce a decolonial conceptual framework to reframe how we learn, teach, and conduct research. This article focuses on the process of the research, as a group reflection on our partnership, and how our own individual positionality has evolved in parallel to the research project.