This article learns from the liberatory praxes of Martín-Baró, a Salvadoran psychologist and cofounder of liberation psychology, and Ella Baker, an American activist known for her transformative role in the Civil Rights movement. After discussing democratizing as verb, we explore three areas of engagement—the art of being together, the art of thinking together, and the art of empowering—as these: trouble consequential givens sedimented within qualitative research, and offer radical epistemic, ontological, and axiological propositions for cultivating inquiry as hopeful world-building. To end, we call forth response-ability as an ongoing ethico-political commitment foundational to democratizing inquiry during worsening and converging crises.
AdornoT. (2020). Education after Auschwitz. Filosofiya osvity. Philosophy of Education.
2.
AhenakewC.AndreottiV. D. O.CooperG.HiremeH. (2014). Beyond epistemic provincialism: De-provincializing Indigenous resistance. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 10(3), 216–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/117718011401000302
3.
AhmedS. (2017). Living a feminist life. Duke University Press.
4.
AlonsoS.KeaneJ.MerkelW. (2011). The future of representative democracy. Cambridge University Press.
5.
AlthusserL. (2014). On the reproduction of capitalism: Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. Verso Books.
6.
AnzaldúaG. (2010). Movimientos de rebeldía y las culturas que traicionan. Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 4(1), 1–7.
7.
AnzaldúaG. (2013). Now let us shift. . . the path of conocimiento. . . inner work, public acts. In AnzaldúaG.KeatingA. L. (Eds.), This bridge we call home (pp. 540–578). Routledge.
8.
AppaduraiA. (2006). The right to research. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 4(2), 167–177.
9.
ArendtH. (1973). The origins of totalitarianism (New ed.). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
BalaS.KadiwalL.KumbamuA.NathA. (2025). Ideas behind bars: The carceral state and struggles for academic freedom in India. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1–19.
13.
BalbachevskyE.Guilhon-AlbuquerqueJ. A. G. (2021). Bolsonaro’s Brazilian neo-nationalism and universities. In DouglassJ. A. (Ed.), Neonationalism and universities: Populists, autocrats and the future of higher education (pp. 239–256). Johns Hopkins University Press.
14.
BarberB. R. (2003). Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. University of California Press.
15.
BarnhardtR.KawagleyA. (2005). Indigenous knowledge systems and Alaska Native ways of knowing. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 36(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2005.36.1.008
16.
BaserB.AkgönülS.ÖztürkA. E. (2017). “Academics for Peace” in Turkey: A case of criminalising dissent and critical thought via counterterrorism policy. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 10(2), 274–296.
17.
BeyM. (2019). Them goon rules: Fugitive essays on radical Black feminism. University of Arizona Press.
18.
BhambraG. K.GebrialD.NişancıoğluK. (2018). Introduction: Decolonising the university? In BhambraG. K.GebrailD.NişancıoğluK. (Eds.), Decolonising the university (pp. 1–18). Pluto Press.
19.
BohmanJ.RehgW. (1997). Deliberative democracy: Essays on reason and politics. MIT Press.
20.
BrannellyT.BoultonA. (2017). The ethics of care and transformational research practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. Qualitative Research, 17(3), 340–350. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794117698916
21.
ButlerA.SinclairK. A. (2020). Place matters: A critical review of place inquiry and spatial methods in education research. Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 64–96.
Castro-GómezS.MartinD. A. (2002). The social sciences, epistemic violence, and the problem of the “invention of the other.”Nepantla: Views From South, 3(2), 269–285.
24.
ChoS.CrenshawK. W.McCallL. (2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38(4), 785–810. https://doi.org/10.1086/669608
25.
CohenJ. (2007). Deliberative democracy. In RosenbergS. W. (Ed.), Deliberation, participation and democracy: Can the people govern? (pp. 219–236). Palgrave Macmillan.
26.
CookT. E.MorganP. M. (1971). Participatory democracy. Canfield Press.
CusicanquiS. R. (2020). Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: On decolonising practices and discourses of decolonization. Polity Press.
29.
Darian-SmithE. (2025). Knowledge production at a crossroads: Rising antidemocracy and diminishing academic freedom. Studies in Higher Education, 50(3), 600–614.
30.
Da SilvaD. F. (2014). Toward a black feminist poethics: The quest (ion) of blackness toward the end of the world. The Black Scholar, 44(2), 81–97.
31.
De OliveiraV. M. (2021). Hospicing modernity: Facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. North Atlantic Books.
32.
de Sousa SantosB. (2015). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge.
33.
de Sousa SantosB. (2018). The end of the cognitive empire: The coming of age of epistemologies of the South. Duke University Press.
34.
DeweyJ. (1927). The public and its problems. Swallow Press.
35.
DiMaggioA. (2022). Rising fascism in America: It can happen here. Routledge.
EdwardsR.BrannellyT. (2017). Approaches to democratising qualitative research methods. Qualitative Research, 17(3), 271–277. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794117706869
38.
EnyediZ. (2018). Democratic backsliding and academic freedom in Hungary. Perspectives on Politics, 16(4), 1067–1074.
39.
EscobarA. (2017). Other worlds are (already) possible: Self-organization, complexity and post-capitalist cultures. Routledge.
40.
EvansB.GirouxH. A. (2020). American fascism: Fourteen deadly principles of contemporary politics. Symploke, 28(1), 181–205. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/773850
41.
Evans-WintersV. E. (2019). Black feminism in qualitative inquiry: A mosaic for writing our daughter’s body. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351046077
42.
Fals-BordaO. (1988). Knowledge and people’s power. Apex Press.
43.
FanonF. (1961). The wretched of the Earth. Grove Press.
44.
FineM.RuglisJ. (2009). Circuits and consequences of dispossession: The racialized realignment of the public sphere for U.S. youth. Transforming Anthropology, 17(1), 20–33.
FraserN. (1989). Unruly practices: Power, discourse, and gender in contemporary social theory. University of Minnesota Press.
47.
FraserN. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, 25–26, 56–80.
48.
FraserN. (2019). The old is dying and the new cannot be born: From progressive neoliberalism to Trump and beyond. Verso Books.
49.
FreireP. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.
50.
FreireP. (2000). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
51.
GiardinaM. D.DenzinN. K. (2013). Confronting neoliberalism: Toward a militant pedagogy of empowered citizenship. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13(6), 443–451.
52.
GrandeS. (2015). Red pedagogy: Native American social and political thought. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
53.
GrandeS. (2018). Refusing the university. In TuckE.Wayne YangK. (Eds.), Toward what justice? (pp. 47–65). Routledge.
54.
GrantJ. (1998). Ella Baker: Freedom bound. Wiley.
55.
GrosfoguelR. (2019). Epistemic extractivism: A dialogue with Alberto Acosta, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui. In de Sousa SantosB.MenesesM. (Eds.), Knowledges born in the struggle (pp. 203–218). Routledge.
56.
GutmannA.ThompsonD. F. (2004). Why deliberative democracy?Princeton University Press.
57.
HabermasJ. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. MIT Press.
58.
HaggardS.KaufmanR. (2021). Backsliding: Democratic regress in the contemporary world. Cambridge University Press.
59.
HaivenM.KhasnabishD. A. (2014). The radical imagination: Social movement research in the age of austerity. Bloomsbury Publishing.
60.
HarneyS.MotenF. (2013). The undercommons: Fugitive planning and black study. Minor Compositions.
61.
Herrera FarfánN. A. (2020). La conexión Colombiana de Ignacio Martín0-Baró. In Dobles OropezaI.Fournier PereireM.Meza PinedaL., et al. (Eds.), Psicología y patalogías del capitalismo. Segunda Época.
62.
hooksb. (1996). Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness.In GarryA.PearsallM. (Eds.), Women, knowledge, and reality (pp. 48–55). Routledge.
63.
JurisJ. (2007). Practicing militant ethnography. In ShukaitisSGraeberD. (Eds.), Constituent imagination: Militant Investigations, Collective Theorization (164–176). AK Press.
64.
KapoorD.JordanS. (Eds.). (2009). Education, participatory action research, and social change. Palgrave Macmillan.
65.
KelleyR. D. G. (1998). Yo’ mama’s disfunktional!: Fighting the culture wars in urban America. Beacon Press.
66.
KirknessV. J.BarnhardtR. (1991). First Nations and higher education: The four R’s—Respect, relevance, reciprocity, responsibility. Journal of American Indian Education, 30(3), 1–15.
67.
KnightJ.JohnsonJ. (1994). Aggregation and deliberation: On the possibility of democratic legitimacy. Political Theory, 22(2), 277–296.
68.
KoonD. S.-V.HaroB. H.ChongS.JordanC. (2024). Challenging academic feudalism. In PhiloxeneD.KoonD. S.-V.FuentesE. H. (Eds.), Crafting homeplace in the academic borderlands. Teacher College Press.
69.
la paperson. (2017). A third university is possible. University of Minnesota Press.
LomawaimaK. T.McCartyT. L. (2025). “To remain an Indian”: Lessons in democracy from a century of Native American education. Teachers College Press.
72.
LordeA. (1977). The transformation of silence into language and action. In RyanB. (Ed.), Identity politics in the women’s movement (pp. 81–84). NYU Press.
73.
LundR.BlackmoreJ.RowlandsJ. (2022). Epistemic governance of diverse research practices and knowledge production: An introduction. Critical Studies in Education, 63(5), 535–548. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2022.2136226
74.
Maldonado-TorresN. (2007). On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270.
75.
MarcosS. (2002). Our word is our weapon: Selected writings. Seven Stories Press.
76.
Martín-BaróI. (1985). Acción e ideología. UCA.
77.
Martín-BaróI. (1990). Guerra y salud mental. Revista de Psicología de El Salvador, 9(35), 71–88.
78.
Martín-BaróI. (1996). Writings for a liberation psychology. Harvard University Press.
79.
MbembeA. (2019). Out of the dark night: Essays on decolonization. Columbia University Press.
McKittrickK. (2021). Dear science and other stories. Duke University Press.
82.
McLarenM. A. (2017). Decolonizing feminism: Transnational feminism and globalization. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
83.
MentanT. (2015). Decolonizing democracy from Western cognitive imperialism. Langaa Research and Publishing CIG.
84.
MignoloW. D. (2014). Further thoughts on (de) coloniality. In BroeckS.JunkerC. (Eds.), Postcoloniality-decoloniality-black critique: Joints and fissures (pp. 21–52). University of Chicago Press.
85.
MikaC.AndreottiV.CooperG.CashA.SilvaD. (2020). The ontological differences between wording and wordling the world. Language, Discourse & Society, 8(1), 17–32.
86.
MillJ. S. (1865). Considerations on representative government. Longman, Roberts, and Green.
87.
MuellerC. (2004). Ella Baker and the origins of “participatory democracy.” In BoboJ.HudleyC.MichelC. (Eds.), The Black studies reader (pp. 91–102). Routledge.
88.
ParisD.WinnM. T. (Eds.). (2013). Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities. Sage Publications.
89.
ParisD.WinnM. T. (2014). Preface: To humanize research. Humanizing research:. In ParisD.WinnM. T. (Eds.), Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities (pp. xiii–xx). Sage.
90.
ParkerP. S. (2020). Ella Baker’s catalytic leadership: A primer on community engagement and communication for social justice. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520972094-008
91.
PatemanC. (2012). Participatory democracy revisited. Perspectives on Politics, 10(1), 7–19.
92.
PayneC. (1989). Ella Baker and models of social change. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14(4), 885–899.
93.
PedotaJ.GarcesL. M.EpsteinE. M. B.NgaosiN. C.KhalaylehN. (2025). “We’re on Our Own Out Here”: Faculty Member Responses to Legislative Threats to Academic Freedom and Scholarship on Race. The Journal of Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2025.2461986
94.
PettitP. (2004). Depoliticizing democracy. Ratio Juris, 17(1), 52–65.
95.
QuijanoA. (2000). Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 533–580.
96.
RansbyB. (2003). Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A radical democratic vision. University of North Carolina Press.
97.
RodríguezD. (2012). Racial/colonial genocide and the “neoliberal academy”: In excess of a problematic. American Quarterly, 64(4), 809–813. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2012.0054
98.
RodríguezD. (2022). Weaponized study in a moment of (counter) insurgency: The gathering anti-“American” of American Studies. American Quarterly, 74(2), 199–212.
99.
RosaC. (2025). Weaving across borders: Planetary (un) learning and relationality through the Ecoversities Alliance. SSE Book of Abstracts.
100.
RousseauJ.-J. (2004). The social contract. Penguin Books.
101.
SmithL. T. (2005). On tricky ground. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 85–107). Sage.
102.
SmithL. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. Zed Books.
103.
SojaE. W. (2013). Seeking spatial justice. University of Minnesota Press.
104.
SpivakG. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In NelsonC.GrossbergL. (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 66–111). University of Illinois Press.
105.
SpoonerM. (2023). Backsliding toward illiberal democracy and authoritarianism. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S.GiardinaM. D.CannellaG. S. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (6th ed., pp. 567–594). Sage.
106.
TeoT. (2010). What is epistemological violence in the empirical social sciences?Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(5), 295–303.
107.
Thiong’oN. (2018). Decolonizing the mind. Présence Africaine, 197, 99–102.
108.
TuckE. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428.
109.
TuckE.McKenzieM. (2015). Relational validity and the “where” of inquiry: Place and land in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(7), 633–638. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414563809
110.
TuckE.YangK. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40.
111.
TuckE.YangK. W. (2014). R-words: Refusing research. In ParisD.WinnM. T. (Eds.), Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities (pp. 223–247). Sage.
112.
TullyJ. (2008). Modern constitutional democracy and imperialism. Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 46, 461.
113.
TutashindaK. (2010). The grassroots political philosophy of Ella Baker: Oakland, California applicability. Journal of Pan African Studies, 3(9), 25–42.
114.
UrbinatiN. (2006). Representative democracy: Principles and genealogy. University of Chicago Press.
115.
WilsonS. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Fernwood.
116.
WolgemuthJ. R.JordanL. S. (2024). Critical qualitative inquiry: An optimistic counter in/to a conservative backslide. International Review of Qualitative Research, 17(2), 185–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/19408447241245110
117.
WongC. P. (2021). The wretched of the research: Disenchanting Man2-as-educational researcher and entering the 36th chamber of education research. Review of Research in Education, 45(1), 27–66.
