Decolonising data analysis: a relational approach through the Kin and Country Framework

This chapter draws on Indigenous, decolonising, and relational research methodologies and applies them to data analysis. As two (ab)Original women from the country now known as Australia, we story our experiences of creating a data analysis process that is relational, acknowledging that data is knowledge in and of itself. Drawing on more-than-human Entities, we aim to decentre the individual human researcher and invite multiple perspectives into the analysis of data. To do this, we use a framework called ‘Kin and Country’ that we previously created to help people think critically and reimagine the future (Bishop & Tynan. Finding perspective through our more-than-human kin. In K. Sims, N. Banks, S. Engel, P. Hodge, J. Makuwira, N. Nakamura, J. Rigg, A. Salamanca, & P. Yeophantong (Eds.), Routledge handbook of global development (1st ed., pp. 593–604). London: Routledge, 2022). The Kin and Country Framework looks to the Entities of Eagle, Ant, Grandmother, Granddaughter which represent the macro, micro, past and future, respectively, and are woven together through pattern thinking. This framework can help us move beyond a thematic analysis of data by centring more-than-human perspectives, including Country and deep time. In this chapter, we share our stories of applying this framework to our research data, and how it may inspire other researchers to draw on their Kin and Country/ies to sit with data in a more relational way. We provide a detailed sequence of our data analysis process for others to follow.