In late 2019, a team of researchers and activists from Ecuador and the UK began a new oral history project, accompanying Afro-Ecuadorian women living in the province of Esmeraldas, as they interrogated and articulated their history and heritage. The impact of coronavirus, which has hit Ecuador particularly hard, delayed the workshops and oral history interviews we had planned, but also created the space for an extended exploration of the ethics of the project. Over email and video calls, the research team debated how to ensure that our work was truly led by its Afro-Ecuadorian participants. How would we secure recognition for their creative and intellectual work and avoid appropriation of their ideas? And how would we facilitate a collective, community-based methodology when most eurocentric oral history is so rooted in individualist approaches? The result of this process is a collectively authored document, which stands as our ethical agreement and baseline, and a record of our joint commitment to decolonise the research process. This wide-ranging conversation between community activists and scholars explores the complex, painstaking negotiations required to create a truly decolonial and feminist practice in transnational oral history work.

中文翻译：

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口述历史去殖民化：对话

2019 年末，来自厄瓜多尔和英国的一组研究人员和活动家开始了一个新的口述历史项目，陪同居住在埃斯梅拉达斯省的非裔厄瓜多尔妇女审问并阐述自己的历史和遗产。冠状病毒对厄瓜多尔的打击尤为严重，推迟了我们计划的研讨会和口述历史访谈，但也为对该项目的伦理进行扩展探索创造了空间。通过电子邮件和视频通话，研究团队讨论了如何确保我们的工作真正由非裔厄瓜多尔参与者领导。我们如何确保他们的创造性和智力工作得到认可并避免盗用他们的想法？我们将如何促进一个集体，当大多数以欧洲为中心的口述历史如此植根于个人主义方法时，基于社区的方法论？这个过程的结果是一个集体创作的文件，它代表我们的道德协议和基线，以及我们对研究过程非殖民化的共同承诺的记录。这场社区活动家和学者之间的广泛对话探讨了在跨国口述历史工作中创造真正的非殖民化和女权主义实践所需的复杂而艰苦的谈判。