Critical methodologies and militant research with afro-descendant communities

Abstract

This article refers to a militant research experience -IM-, carried out between 2011 and 2016, in the territories of Afro-descendant communities in the Alto Cauca region, particularly in the districts of El Hormiguero and La Toma, municipalities of Cali and Suárez, respectively. The IM, located in postdisciplinary, critical and decolonial epistemological postures, allows dialogue between communities, researcher and academic institution encouraging intellectual production and the challenges of collective life, which are well expressed in the Muntu, as philosophy inherited from Africa. Here are described tools such as workshops, meetings, stays, participation in meaningful collective actions, interviews, and the Guide for collective reflection -GRC-, which in an innovative, emerging and convergent combination allow to produce relevant, valid and reliable qualitative data that, with the documentary information, sustain a narrative of the complex historical and spatial formation and of the forms of water governance in said region, especially considering socio-ecological transformations caused by the construction and operation of the Salvajina Hydroelectric Power Plant.