How can we engage in science that is not only excellent, but also just? What does it mean to decolonize research and teaching in a discipline like geography, with its historical role in enabling colonialisms? These were the driving questions behind two recent workshops at GIUZ, held on May 20 and June 3, as part of the Better Science initiative.

More than forty members of the GIUZ community joined one or both events. Participants ranged across research groups, from remote sensing and hydrology to human geography and GIS. This disciplinary breadth, along with the strong presence of early-career researchers, underlined that the conversation on decolonization is relevant for all of us.

What does decolonizing our research mean?    

In the first session, Prof. Dr. Patricia Purtschert (University of Bern) and Dr. Amitangshu Acharya (IHE Delft) talked about the enduring legacies of colonialism in Swiss and international academia. Drawing on research and personal experiences, they highlighted how coloniality operates not only in historical archives, but in everydayscience. Coloniality influences academic processes such as funding flows and authorship hierarchies but also shapes assumptions about whose knowledge counts as “scientific”. In particular, scientific knowledge production from the Global North is typically privileged over that from the Global South.

In small groups, participants across GIUZ discussed how coloniality shapes their research practices. Many participants remarked that it was one of the first times they had encountered these ideas in a Swiss academic setting. In public discourse in Switzerland, coloniality is often portrayed as something that happened in the past or as irrelevant to the country. Despite their varied research foci, participants shared an enthusiasm for addressing coloniality in their research. Strategies discussed ranged from individual citation strategies to building more long-term and equitable collaborations with partners in the Global South.

What can we do to decolonize our research?    

The second session, led by Dr. Medinat Malefakis (ETH Zürich, NADEL), focused on implementing decolonial practices in scientific research. Drawing from her work on equitable partnerships, she challenged us to move beyond good intentions to doing the work. “Decolonization is a journey,” she reminded the group, “not a checklist.” Together, we explored practical tools: co-creating research agendas, resisting saviourism, recognizing all forms of expertise, and naming power dynamics directly, whether they stem from race, funding, or institutional affiliation.

A particularly powerful moment came when participants shared personal stories, about feeling alienated as people of color, about being asked to speak for entire communities, or about realizing how research practices unintentionally reinforced inequality. These experiences made clear: decolonizing research isn’t about political correctness. It’s about creating better and fairer science.

From talk to action

Across both sessions, participants articulated aspirations for the GIUZ community to address colonial legacies in our research. Suggestions included:

• Defining and committing to meaningful collaborations
• Pursuing research questions that reflect the needs and aspirations of our collaborators – not just us
• Normalizing reflecting on researchers’ positionalities in all geography subfields
• Reflecting on citation practices so as to ensure global and gender diversity
• Reflecting on expectations placed on Southern collaborators (e.g. being picked up from the airport)
• Creating spaces for ongoing discussion, empathetic reflection, and mutual learning within the GIUZ community

We also acknowledged our own learning curves. For some, concepts like “epistemic injustice” or “white privilege” felt unfamiliar. Others had worked on these topics for years. The workshops emphasized that everyone has a place in this conversation and that discomfort can be a productive starting point.

Looking ahead

Organized by a multidisciplinary team of PhDs, postdocs, and faculty from GIUZ, and supported by the Graduate Campus and the GIUZ Justice Fund, these workshops were only the beginning. With the upswell of interest these workshops received, we now look to concrete steps, for example to compile shared guidelines for integrating decolonial approaches into our research and teaching.

If you missed the events or would like to stay involved, feel free to get in touch. We welcome contributions from anyone interested in these topics, whether you’re new to them or have been working on decolonizing science for some time.

Improving science is not just about refining methods, it also involves strengthening inclusive relationships to ensure our work contributes meaningfully to local and global challenges.

Better Science Initiative

Title image: Reproduction of Fig. 1 (“The fingerprint of colonialism on ecology today”) from: Trisos, C.H., Auerbach, J. & Katti, M. (2021). Decoloniality and anti-oppressive practices for a more ethical ecology. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5, 1205–1212. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01460-w
Created by Micha Franz / UZH. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Sofia van Moorsel, Shona Loong, Hendrik Wulf, on behalf of the “Decolonize Science” working group and the wider Better Science Initiative