Decolonizing consumer research: Re-thinking qualitative research methods with African immigrants

Abstract

When researching the experiences of African minorities as immigrants, using authentic or indigenous methodologies requires a deep understanding of both the socio-cultural dimensions of migration and the exclusionary structures within the marketplace. We highlight how indigenous methodologies can be used to examine four themes: (1) market exclusion and structural barriers ( including economic, social, cultural); (2) the use of diverse epistemologies to ensure research on African immigrants incorporates Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) principles and recognizes the legitimacy of multiple ways of knowing; (3) how African immigrants navigate identity through cultural continuity, adaptation, and resistance; and (4) the validation of African immigrants’ voices and knowledge by positioning them as central actors in the research. Using the Two-Eyed Seeing approach and the Ubuntu African philosophy, we extend our understanding of decolonizing by demonstrating how qualitative consumer research can empower ethnic minority populations with distinct cultural identities and colonial histories, fostering inclusivity and relationality in the field of marketing.

Introduction

Early marketing research scholars have advocated for people to be placed at the center of research undertakings by being sensitive to consumers’ perspectives and actively engaging them in a way that fully represents and respects their thinking (Zaltman, 1997). Innovative qualitative research methods have been put forward to capture rich insights from verbal and non-verbal data such as emotions, visuals, and metaphors. Moreover, global and scholarly conversations on diversity and inclusion have made it necessary for research involving people to be increasingly sensitive to their traditions, cultures, and orientations (Arsel et al., 2022; Badejo and Gordon, 2022). Diversity refers to real (tangible) or perceived distinctions in physical characteristics or socio-cultural backgrounds associated with individuals, as well as how distinctions are portrayed and accounted for in research, marketplaces, and within organizations (Wu and Apfelbaum, 2024). Inclusion encompasses nurturing a sense of belonging and integration among diverse groups, typically expressed as the antithesis of exclusion or marginalization (Arsel et al., 2022).

In the context of consumer research, diversity and inclusion cut across issues of ethnicity (Veresiu and Giesler, 2018), culture (Peñaloza, 1994), cultural identity (Vikas et al., 2015), and race (Crockett, 2021), among others. Cultural orientations shape how consumers think and respond to market offerings. As consumers become more socially conscious, they increasingly support brands that reflect inclusive values (Prothero et al., 2011; Shaw and Newholm, 2002). Yet cultural and traditional identities should not be reduced to mere segmentation tools; they should inform the philosophical foundations of inclusion in consumer research (Prothero et al., 2011). In line with this perspective, the aim of this paper is to enhance, rather than dismiss, existing DEI approaches by offering a more nuanced and culturally grounded framework.

While DEI initiatives by governments, institutions, civil societies, and groups have made significant strides toward inclusion of minority voices in consumer research, they often treat Black consumers as a monolithic group, overlooking the unique experiences of African immigrants with distinct values, norms, rituals, beliefs, language, symbols, food, artefacts, and stories (Fozdar, 2023). Hence, categorizing individuals of color living outside the African continent (within the diaspora) solely as Africans introduces a distinct form of marginalization, particularly for African immigrants who are likely to maintain strong ties to their African cultural identity (Gatwiri and Anderson, 2021).

When consumer researchers follow the same line of action, it could be argued that notions of diversity and inclusivity, while advancing important progress, still risk homogenizing diverse identities when African immigrants are subsumed under broader racial categories. In everyday marketplace interactions, the voices (preferences and perspectives) of minority consumers are often overlooked. As a result, they face structurally limited choices, and their self-concept, self-esteem, and sense of autonomy may be negatively impacted (Bone et al., 2014). Research plays a critical role in shaping how marginalized communities are understood, represented, and engaged by markets and institutions. When research relies on homogenizing or Western-centric categories, it risks reinforcing the very exclusions it seeks to address.

There is a need to constantly improve how consumers are studied in various sensitive contexts, particularly those related to diversity, equity and inclusion (Zaltman, 1997). This need has more recently been extended into the need to decolonize consumer research and make it inclusive enough to accommodate marginalized ethnicities (Arsel et al., 2022). Decolonizing research involves being critically and consciously aware of the need to research in a way that respects the cultural values of indigenous people (Smith, 2021). In this paper, the term indigenous refers to a cultural group’s ways of perceiving reality, ways of knowing, and the value systems that inform research processes (e.g., African epistemologies and philosophies), rather than to indigenous peoples of settler-colonial nations. Culturally grounded, inclusive methodologies can reveal hidden inequities, legitimize marginalized voices, and inform market and social policies that are more responsive and just.

As a way of developing an approach to representing African experiences in markets, we start with Badejo and Gordon’s (2022) suggestion that some preconceived notions about how research ought to be conducted and presented should be re-examined or reshaped, not discarded completely. Such a re-examination inspires the use of novel alternative methods of inquiry in consumer research, some of which include sensory anthropology (Scott and Uncles, 2018); art-based research (Seregina, 2020); poetizing (Rojas-Gaviria, 2021); artnography (Bettany, 2022), especially when those questions concern marginalized indigenous groups, such as black voices in academics and the marketplace (Igwe et al., 2022).

Our paper provides insight into how indigenous African methodological perspectives can contribute to the ongoing theoretical conversations on inclusion and exclusion within consumer research. In response to recent calls for more comparative research across different geographic regions, a deeper understanding of epistemic injustices, and the integration of diverse cultural knowledges (Arnould and Melea Press, 2019; Arsel et al., 2022; Hutton and Cappellini, 2022; Saren et al., 2019), this paper focuses on themes of Systemic Exclusion and Epistemic Injustices in Marketplaces and DEI within the context of immigration, culture, and ethnicity (Jafari and Luca, 2013). We argue that addressing systemic barriers, symbolic misrepresentation, and epistemic injustice begins with research methodologies capable of revealing and legitimizing the lived experiences and knowledge of African immigrants. Specifically, we address how indigenous African perspectives can expand our understanding of these themes while challenging the current dominance of Western methodological frameworks. Our work complements and extends DEI scholarship by disentangling the voices of African immigrants from broader racial categories, centering culturally grounded epistemologies in consumer research, and providing tools for uncovering these inequities and informing more inclusive market practices, thereby advancing a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of minority experiences in the marketplace.

Systemic market exclusion, epistemic injustices, and DEI

Systemic market exclusion

Market exclusion, the denial of full participation in market systems, is a persistent challenge for marginalized groups. For example, Arnould and Melea Press (2019) examine how producer-consumers in East Africa face systemic barriers, while Saren et al. (2019) draw attention to broader dimensions of exclusion such as poverty, racism, sexism, and, on an individual level, isolation and alienation. For African immigrants, systemic and symbolic exclusion operate simultaneously: they are not only denied equitable access to goods and services but are also misrepresented in ways that reinforce stereotypes and diminish their social and cultural identities. These forms of exclusion contribute to heightened vulnerability, diminishing African immigrants’ sense of agency and reinforcing their social and economic marginalization (Baker et al., 2005; Harvey, 2015). Understanding the ways Africans, whether as migrants or within broader global contexts, are excluded from social, economic, and cultural spheres, even within other marginalized groups, is a key concern of this paper.

Rather than treating African immigrants as a homogeneous group, we emphasize the need for African-sensitized methodologies to account for the diversity of experiences among African people. This includes acknowledging differences between African immigrants and other African diaspora communities (e.g., African Americans) while remaining sensitive to the varied socio-cultural, historical, and geographic contexts in which African individuals are situated. When using indigenous methodologies, we aim to think about and devise ways to acknowledge how systemic exclusion shapes African immigrant experiences both within their host countries and in a global context. This methodological focus can involve capturing how market practices, social hierarchies, and policies reinforce their marginalization. Our work answers the call for research methods that amplify marginalized voices (refer to Moko-Painting and McAllister, 2023) and provides a methodological framework for dismantling structural barriers and making African immigrant experiences visible, credible, and actionable.

Of particular interest is Arnould and Melea Press (2019) assertion that experiences of “small-player” producer-consumers in the contemporary market system are characterized (paradoxically) by inclusion and exclusion. As such, methodologies which explore the lived experiences of Africans in various marketplaces and spaces should allow such paradoxes to emerge, highlighting the need to address our unquestioned answers (entrenched assumptions) in marketing research (Wilson, 2020). As Saren et al. (2019, p. 476) note, exclusion “captures not only the failure of the marketplace to provide goods and services at a price individuals can afford but also the failure of the market to adequately represent them symbolically.” For African immigrants, symbolic misrepresentation perpetuates reductive narratives, portraying them as opportunists, victims, or even as associated with crime, which overshadow their rich cultural heritage and influence public perceptions, policies, and their social integration (Molla, 2021). Such misrepresentations harm both individual identities and collective community cohesion.

Epistemic injustices

Closely related to systemic exclusion is the phenomenon of epistemic injustice. Defined by Hutton and Cappellini (2022), epistemic injustice is the systematic denial of marginalized groups’ status as legitimate knowers. Hutton and Cappellini (2022) argue that dominant epistemological frameworks bias what counts as valid knowledge, silencing “Other” ways of knowing and reproducing power hierarchies. This is particularly relevant for African immigrants, whose lived experiences and cultural perspectives are often largely missing in consumer research. The marginalization of these communities is reinforced by two types of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice, which involves disbelieving or dismissing minority perspectives, and hermeneutical injustice, which involves failing to provide the interpretive resources necessary to understand minority experiences (Hutton and Cappellini, 2022).

Indigenous methodologies inherently resist epistemic injustice by validating the knowledge and experiences of minorities. By using approaches such as storytelling, oral histories, or community-based participatory methods, African immigrant experiences can be understood and legitimized in their own terms. As Hutton and Cappellini (2022, p. 160) note, “[e]pistemic injustice generates and reproduces knowledge hierarchies through the epistemic harm of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice and through the communicative interactions and modes of representation enacted by those in dominant positions and the way this social power leads to epistemic power over ‘Others’.” By advocating for embedding African epistemologies into marketing research, we contribute to contesting epistemic injustice and dominance, legitimizing culturally grounded perspectives, and dismantling structural inequities.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

DEI scholarship (e.g., Ng et al., 2022) has advanced important conversations in consumer research by encouraging sensitivity to the perspectives, traditions, and experiences of marginalized groups. Arsel et al. (2022), for example, curated research published in the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) that explores DEI issues relating to gender, age, body, race and ethnicity, social class and social status, and religion and cultural identity. We follow their call for more inclusive methodologies by centering African ways of knowing, experiences, and interpretations through the use of authentic, culturally grounded epistemologies, but note that none of the studies they reviewed explicitly address the experiences of African immigrants or the broader African diaspora. This gap underscores the need for scholarship that engages specifically with African perspectives.

While acknowledging the significant advances made possible by Western DEI frameworks, we argue that these alone are insufficient for capturing the lived realities of African immigrants. Historically, consumer research has relied heavily on Westernized methodologies that largely ignored the perspectives of indigenous communities (Igwe et al., 2022). Nevertheless, these Western approaches have yielded remarkable research successes, insights, and advancements. Thus, discarding such Westernized methodological perspectives seems unfair and even defies the principles of inclusion and relationality advocated by indigenous researchers. Rather than rejecting Western methodologies outright, we advocate an integrative approach grounded in the principle of relationality. As Wilson (2020) explains, relational accountability to the discipline requires researchers to honor the knowledge systems of indigenous communities while respecting the established codes of conduct of the discipline. Notably, this concept of inclusion is shared among Western and indigenous research scholars (e.g., Arsel et al., 2022; Love and Michael, 2022). Instead of fostering debates on the superiority of one methodology over another, relationality suggests that collaboration between these perspectives is crucial for the advancement of any research field. This approach opposes dominant methodologies that silence indigenous communities while fostering healing, harmony, and unity within the consumer research community (Chilisa, 2019).

Understandably, finding common ground could pose a significant struggle in cross-cultural research (Wilson, 2020); yet it is necessary if indigenous research must be understandable to both the indigenous population and the mainstream audience of the discipline. Following Ng et al.’s (2022) decolonizing call, it is important for research methods to embrace the cultural values of indigenous populations from Africa, a region “marginalized in marketing theory, discourse and practice” (Badejo and Gordon, 2022: p. 231), while holding these in tension with established methodologies and ways of knowing. As much as the possibility exists for Africans to have a strong and respected voice in the marketing discipline (Badejo and Gordon, 2022), there must be negotiations among cultural values when rethinking the paradigms, philosophies, epistemologies and methods (Smith, 2021). While one could argue for African marketing research scholars to advocate for a pure Afro-centric qualitative methodological framework, such a possibility is debatable and defies the integrative principle of indigenous research methodologies (Chilisa, 2019). Moreover, because of colonization, Western philosophies and ideologies have influenced the cultural identity of many African nations to some degree. Attempting to deviate from this reality could also be deemed a type of silencing of the lived realities of those who live in or are from these nations.

When dealing with marginalized groups with unique cultural identities, decolonizing methodologies require the use of indigenous methods specific to a cultural group’s ways of perceiving reality, knowing and their value systems. To advance DEI in a way that recognizes and validates African epistemologies, researchers must adopt culturally sensitive methodologies that are attuned to the lived realities of African immigrant communities. Chilisa (2019) points out that indigenous research is characterized by its emphasis on local phenomena, sensitivity to context, and potential for integration of Western and indigenous theories while being guided by an indigenous paradigm. Furthermore, indigenous research is relational at its core. Thus, it should be acknowledged that relationships shape reality and researchers bear accountability not only to participants and communities but also to the discipline itself (Wilson, 2020). By proposing an indigenous methodological approach that prioritizes cultural specificity, relationality, and epistemic justice, our work extends the principles of DEI beyond their current scope to fully account for the lived experiences of African immigrants.

While indigenous African philosophies offer valuable alternatives, they too have limits and constraints that qualitative marketing researchers should acknowledge and navigate through the critical lenses of mainstream ontological, epistemological, and methodological perspectives. Such critical engagement opens new pathways for rethinking how the qualitative consumer research field approaches the study of African consumers (Badejo and Gordon, 2022).

Rethinking qualitative research practices with African immigrant consumers

To provide a way of doing research with ethnic minority African immigrants, we adopt the Two-Eyed Seeing Theory, or Etuaptmumk, propounded by Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall (Iwama et al., 2009), as the theoretical perspective for researching indigenous immigrant populations with colonial history. This theory posits that indigenous ways of knowing can complement mainstream (Western or non-indigenous) philosophical traditions, offering a more holistic and inclusive approach to reality and knowledge discovery (Iwama et al., 2009). It alludes to the integrative principle of decolonizing methodologies by advocating the blending of indigenous ways of knowing alongside mainstream ways of knowing (Bartlett et al., 2012). This approach promotes equity and fairness while decolonizing research, and is especially important when working with populations whose indigenous cultural values are nuanced with colonial or Western influences (Chapfika, 2023).

The Two-Eyed Seeing perspective supports the idea that while indigenous and non-indigenous worldviews may differ, they remain compatible (Wilson, 2020). As conceptualized by Reid et al. (2020), the application of this framework in research is underpinned by six core philosophies: recognition of mutual research interest (e.g., need for inclusive consumer research practices), identification of required tools, research co-development, co-evaluation and community validation, shared recognition and co-benefits and, ultimately, sustainable long-term relationship among all the research stakeholders (refer to Figure 1).

Figure 1.

A stepwise framework for applying Two-Eyed Seeing to research (Source: Reid et al., 2020).

While at the time of this study there were no documented applications of Two-Eyed Seeing in consumer research, scholars in service marketing (i.e., Ross and Vink, 2024) and management and organization studies (i.e., Salmon et al., 2023) have acknowledged the potential of indigenous theoretical approaches, such as Two-Eyed Seeing and African-centered methodologies, to generate valuable critical insights. A notable example of its application in business research is the qualitative study by Smailhodzic et al. (2025), published in the Information Systems Journal. The authors integrated indigenous and Western knowledge systems to explore how indigenous communities navigate social media and to design platforms that better meet their needs (Smailhodzic et al., 2025). They operationalized Two-Eyed Seeing by seeking guidance from indigenous contacts before starting the research, supporting indigenous knowledge holders, deferring to indigenous leadership during field visits, and building long-term relationships with participants, as evidenced by their continued engagement nearly a year later (Smailhodzic et al., 2025).

In an ongoing study of the marginalization of skilled African immigrant women in employment settings in New Zealand, the first author of this paper (herein referred to as Author 1) applied the principles of Two-Eyed Seeing by integrating indigenous African epistemologies with mainstream qualitative methods. This involved combining narrative-based, culturally grounded African ways of knowing with established techniques such as semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis. For example, Author 1 invited participants to share and interpret local African proverbs during conversations, enabling them to articulate complex cultural meanings in their own terms. In line with indigenous relational protocols, Author 1 consulted with respected elders of the African immigrant community, allowing them to lead the recruitment call and lend legitimacy to the research. At the same time, Author 1 complemented these practices by using Western communication channels, such as email newsletters, to disseminate information, reach, and report findings to participants and the African community. This integrative approach allowed participants’ lived experiences and cultural knowledge to guide the research process while maintaining academic rigor, demonstrating how Two-Eyed Seeing can be effectively operationalized in consumer research contexts.

The application of Two-Eyed Seeing directly addresses the epistemic injustices and homogenizing tendencies outlined earlier by legitimizing African ways of knowing alongside Western methods, and by enabling the articulation of culturally specific experiences that are often silenced or misrepresented in mainstream research. In doing so, it helps counter the symbolic exclusion of African immigrant communities by centering their knowledge, voices, and cultural identities within the research process.

Ubuntu Ontology and epistemology in qualitative marketing research

Ubuntu, an indigenous African philosophy often translated as “I am because we are,” offers a culturally grounded paradigm for researching African immigrant communities. Originating from the Xhosa culture in South Africa, Ubuntu embodies humanness, respect, and harmony for and among all living (e.g., the researcher, research participants and research communities) and non-living or abstract entities (e.g., the research discipline) (Chilisa et al., 2017). The Ubuntu concept is shared among many African cultures. Some cultures refer to it as botho (denoting reciprocal respect; Botswana), umunthu (oneness; Malawi), obuntu (generosity, consideration and humane-ness towards others; Uganda) and utu, umundu, undu, untu (all meaning humanness; East Africa, Kenya) (Ohnwentsya, 2013). Notwithstanding the language derivation, it is clear Ubuntu is centered on connectedness and humaneness (or fairness or social justice).

Ubuntu aligns with social constructivist epistemologies, prioritizing collectivism over individualism and emphasizing the co-construction of knowledge through respectful, harmonious, and relational engagement (Wilson, 2020). The importance of relationality (connectedness and interdependence) is expressed in the Ubuntu philosophy’s mantra, “I am because we are” or “humanity towards others.” The collage in Figure 2 provides some symbolic representations of Ubuntu. The symbol typically involves individuals forming a circle or interconnected pattern using their hands or feet. This gesture visually represents the interconnectedness and mutual support emphasized by Ubuntu, highlighting the importance of communal relationships and shared humanity. The hand symbol serves as a tangible expression of the philosophy, reinforcing the idea that individuals find their identity and purpose through their interconnected relationships within the community (Akin-Otiko, 2024; Ohnwentsya, 2013). Ubuntu offers a counter-framing to the epistemic injustice and symbolic misrepresentation African immigrants often face by affirming their identities as inherently relational and community-embedded. Incorporating Ubuntu into consumer research illuminates the cultural specificity of African immigrant experiences.

Figure 2.

Symbolic representations of the Ubuntu philosophy (Source: Authors’ original photographs).

While the adoption of Ubuntu satisfies the relationality need of the African community, the axiological principle of social constructionism ensures that this is done within ethical codes for such research to truly improve the reality of the research participants (Wilson, 2020). Moreover, researchers must maintain a critical awareness of their vulnerabilities in order to foster genuine collaboration and actively co-construct knowledge with participants, thereby avoiding extractive or one-sided interpretations (Montero-Sieburth, 2020). Again, in a recent research with African immigrant women in New Zealand, Author 1 drew on Ubuntu to create an environment of trust and mutual respect, ensuring that participants felt valued not only as data sources but as co-constructors of knowledge. This relational approach informed all stages of the research. Community elders (key executives of the African Association) were consulted to legitimize and guide the process and were invited to lead the recruitment call, ensuring cultural appropriateness and inclusivity. Data collection methods were designed to reflect participants’ cultural norms, such as encouraging the use of African proverbs during conversations and facilitating African Talking Circles, which allowed participants to speak and listen in ways consistent with their traditions. At the same time, Western tools (including email newsletters) were used for outreach, demonstrating Ubuntu’s potential to complement rather than exclude Western approaches. By embodying Ubuntu’s ethos of interconnectedness, the research process itself became a space of inclusion and empowerment, illustrating how this philosophy can meaningfully counter marginalization and epistemic silencing in qualitative consumer research.

Ubuntu has been influential not only in traditional African societies but has also gained recognition and relevance in contemporary discussions about ethics, human rights, and social justice (Chapfika, 2023). Its principles resonate with the idea of fostering a sense of shared humanity and promoting inclusive, harmonious communities. This philosophy has been applied in migration and transactional contexts. For instance, Nelson Mandela (famous South African anti-apartheid activist and politician) explained that Ubuntu does not mean people should not enrich themselves when rendering help (giving food or water) to travelers, but instead, it emphasizes that they do so to improve the community they find themselves in (Ohnwentsya, 2013). However, its relevance in the international DEI consumer research context, for example, ethnic minority African consumers, is still unexplored. Accordingly, consumer culture research should incorporate Ubuntu African philosophy but with values entailed in social constructionism when researching vulnerable populations from Africa. This blended approach will promote a culturally enriched, collaborative, and ethically sound perspective to the research.

Beyond consumer research, Ubuntu has been applied in other disciplines, though often retrospectively or reductively. In education, Seehawer (2018) used Ubuntu as a research paradigm in participatory action research with South African science teachers, emphasizing personal relationships, oral traditions, and community-driven methodologies. In health communication, Chasi and Omarjee (2014) advocated Ubuntu as a normative and critical framework for HIV/AIDS campaigns to avoid stereotyping and misrepresentation. In marketing, however, Ubuntu is more commonly treated as a cultural or attitudinal construct rather than as a research paradigm. For example, Jere and Burgess (2014), Senooane (2014), and Divaries and Saruchera (2022) used Ubuntu as a variable to explain African consumer behavior, missing the opportunity to employ it as a guiding epistemology. Similarly, Sithole, Gillian, and D’Souza (2021) demonstrated how Ubuntu, reflected through connectedness and transparency, enhanced customer co-creation experiences in financial services, yet stopped short of fully integrating Ubuntu as a research philosophy.

Decolonial theorizing in marketing more broadly has often drawn from contexts outside Africa, notably Latin America’s bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) approach (Faria and Hemais, 2017) and cultural hybridization among Indian immigrants (Coskuner-Balli and Ertimur, 2016), while missing African epistemologies. Hence, the discipline misses the opportunity to incorporate Ubuntu as a guiding framework for authentic engagement with African consumers. For example, Fagbola et al. (2023) studied liminal consumption in Nigerian wedding rituals using mainstream qualitative methods, despite uncovering themes of marginalization, exclusion, and gatekeeping that could have been better addressed by engaging community elders as co-creators of knowledge. Similarly, Appau and Crockett’s (2023) study of gift exchange among Ghanaian immigrants acknowledged Kwansodeɛ, a Ghanaian cultural norm, but treated it as a finding rather than grounding the research design in such indigenous principles from the outset.

By failing to engage with indigenous paradigms like Ubuntu, such studies miss opportunities to represent African consumers’ voices, to uncover culturally meaningful practices, and to challenge epistemic hierarchies within the field of consumer research. Our framework addresses these missed opportunities by further proposing specific methods centering relationality, collective identity, and cultural meaning-making in the research process.

Methodologies consistent with the Ubuntu research philosophy and two-eyed seeing approach

While decoupling the concept of Ubuntu, Mbiti (1990) explains that whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. The individual can only say, “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.” This principle is fundamental in understanding reality from an African philosophical lens. For this reason, the specific research design adopted should clearly honor relationships by connecting participants with each other, the researcher, and any other symbolic representation included in the research. Consequently, it is impossible to separate oneself from the research completely. Instead, the researcher is an integral part of the knowledge co-construction at every stage of the research and the medium through which connections are made between the African and non-African approaches. Hence, following the two-eyed seeing principle, a combination of indigenous community-based participatory research (iCBPR) and ethnography is appropriate.

Research design: Indigenous community-based participatory research (iCBPR) & ethnography

Although no universal definition exists, indigenous Community-Based Participatory Research (iCBPR) can refer to a research paradigm rooted in indigenous worldviews that emphasizes collective knowledge production, relational accountability, and community leadership throughout the research process (Chilisa, 2019; Joseph, 2023; LaVeaux and Christopher, 2009). It “represents an inclusive research approach that integrates indigenous voices and epistemologies at the center of the research process” (Igwe et al., 2022: p. 13), allowing marginalized populations to have a voice in shaping the research agenda, contributing to decision-making, and influencing the outcomes of the research. The iCBPR design helps to eliminate the power imbalances subtly inherent in conventional qualitative approaches such as ethnography (the in-depth study and description of a particular social group, culture, or community in its natural setting). For example, while ethnographic research may engage communities deeply to understand their behaviors, beliefs, values, and social structures, it often remains extractive and researcher-led, positioning the researcher as a neutral observer (Kariippanon et al., 2019). It may, therefore, miss the importance of consulting, collaborating, informing, empowering, and practicing the shared values of the research participants (Igwe et al., 2022). On the other hand, iCBPR positions the community as a co-researcher. Research questions, methods, and outcomes are shaped collaboratively, and success is measured not only by theoretical contributions but also by tangible benefits to the community involved. iCBPR is guided by relational ethics and reciprocal obligations, ensuring that the research process itself contributes to empowerment and decolonization.

Notwithstanding, iCBPR shares similarities with ethnography in its collaborative and participatory nature. Both approaches involve close engagement with the community, emphasizing the importance of community members actively participating in the research process. Being that decolonization emphasizes collective reflexivity (Kariippanon et al., 2019), thinking and upholding shared values and desires, the weakness of ethnographic design can be complemented by iCBPR design that reflects collaborative reasoning between the researcher and the research community with the aim of projecting their voices throughout the research process (Kessi et al., 2020). While iCBPR addresses important limitations of conventional ethnography, ethnographic design itself contributes distinct and valuable strengths to consumer research. Through its systematic immersion, thick description, contextual mapping, and collective reflexivity of social practices, ethnography enables researchers to trace how consumption is embedded in everyday life and community settings (Kariippanon et al., 2019). These strengths remain important within a decolonizing marketing agenda, which does not reject conventional ethnographic rigor but builds upon its detailed contextual insight and theoretical articulation. In this way, the integration of iCBPR and ethnography exemplifies Two-Eyed Seeing in practice: one “eye” preserving the strengths of established qualitative inquiry, and the other centering indigenous epistemologies and participatory ethics.

A critical component of a decolonizing agenda for marketing is the integration of epistemologies from Africa. With 54 countries and more than 3000 ethnicities and languages, African immigrant populations often have unique cultural richness, contexts, and experiences, and face multifaceted challenges, which, sadly, have too often been overlooked in favor of Eurocentric frames (Badejo and Gordon, 2022). Africa’s historical experience, shaped by colonialism, slavery, globalization, and neoliberal market ideologies, requires marketing research approaches that are attentive to power, oppression, and context. Yet the consumer research fields are still largely missing a cohesive critical perspective that centers these realities or promotes inclusive, fair, and just marketplaces for African people (Mensah, 2008 cited in Badejo and Gordon, 2022). iCBPR provides a framework capable of addressing these gaps. An illustrative example is Author 1’s research with skilled African immigrant women in Aotearoa New Zealand, which drew on iCBPR principles to center the participants’ voices in all phases of the research. Community elders were engaged early to guide recruitment and provide legitimacy to the research aims. Participants were not simply respondents, but co-creators of meaning: they contributed to shaping interview protocols, contextualized findings through culturally resonant proverbs, and participated in group conversations. In this way, the iCBPR approach helped ensure that the research reflected their collective realities and enabled a research process that was inclusive, empowering, and relational.

For consumer research, adopting iCBPR can open new pathways for exploring marginalized consumer voices, surfacing context-specific forms of value creation, and co-developing market understandings that reflect local cultural meanings. Reviews of indigenous research methodologies have shown that many incorporate community-based participatory approaches (Drawson et al., 2017; Forbes et al., 2020; Joseph, 2023). CBPR has been valuable and effective for complex interventions (Burns et al., 2017), especially in situations where there is actual or perceived power imbalance (Wallerstein et al., 2019). iCBPR, with its emphasis on the integration of culture (Joseph, 2023) and the significant involvement of tribal leaders and community members in the research process (LaVeaux and Christopher, 2009), is well-suited to navigate these cultural nuances and multiple complexities (Wallerstein et al., 2019). It allows for culturally sensitive research that respects the indigenous community’s perspectives, values and preferences. Hence, iCBPR represents both a methodological shift and a commitment to ongoing discourse of inclusion in consumer research.

When combined under the Two-Eyed Seeing framework, the iCBPR and ethnography research designs become complementary rather than oppositional. Ethnography provides methodological structure and analytical depth (Kariippanon et al., 2019), while iCBPR ensures relational accountability, community co-construction, and epistemic inclusion (Igwe et al., 2022; Joseph, 2023). Together, they enable a research process that is both theoretically rigorous and culturally grounded, producing insights that are systematically analyzed yet collaboratively validated.

Data collection: African Talking Circles (Dare/Indaba) & interviews

iCBPR research design offers a range of methods for collecting data, which include observation, interviews, and group interviews. Drawing from the Ubuntu principle of connectedness, African talking circles (such as Dare and Indaba) serve as appropriate indigenous methods of collecting data from cultural groups. Originating from South Africa, the Dare (involving not more than eight participants) or Indaba (involving eight to 16 participants) refer to a group conversational process (usually about four rounds) that entails indigenously sharing stories and developing knowledge while fostering equality, respect, togetherness, and collective knowledge-building between researchers and participants and is therefore aligned to the principles of Ubuntu. It can be a physical or online conversation, usually involving a symbolic act (such as hand clapping, sharing a local proverb that resonates with the research topic), object, food, or drink (Khupe, 2020).

In African talking circles, genuine, unfiltered stories are collected. The concept of talking circles is associated with the concept of togetherness promoted by the Ubuntu research philosophy of respect. In mainstream FGD, participants can contribute to the conversations freely and insightfully, yet spontaneously, which can make it difficult to separate individual responses from group responses (Kidd and Parshall, 2000). Such a situation is mitigated in the African talking circle, where participants take turns speaking and listening while a member is speaking. This turn-taking mechanism is common in African dialogue (Mey, 2001; Osoba, 2015) and can be attributed to a culture of respect and consideration for fellow humans. Lastly, in focus groups, some participants may be shy and unwilling to provide information. However, such reticence is much less likely to be the case with Dare or Indaba because these traditional African dialogue forms are deeply embedded in communal values, fostering a sense of safety, respect, and collective responsibility among participants. In these settings, participants often feel a stronger obligation to contribute, as these gatherings are seen not just as discussions but as a shared responsibility toward group decision-making and problem-solving. Unlike typical focus groups, where participants may feel disconnected or hesitant to speak, Dare and Indaba promote inclusivity, where each person’s voice is valued, and mutual support encourages open and honest communication. Participants who have already been part of the research design (iCBPR) are bound by trust and collectively understand that the outcome of the exercise is for their mutual benefit, and not to exploit them, as feared by many participants engaged in consumer research (Kaufman et al., 2019). Embracing indigenous African data collection techniques enhances the requirement for relational accountability within the consumer research field, particularly regarding how data is utilized.

This approach was implemented in Author 1’s research with four groups of six to eight skilled African immigrant women in Aotearoa New Zealand. Each Dare circle used a local, red-beaded hand bangle as a symbolic talking piece. When held by a participant, others listened respectfully without interruption, reinforcing the Ubuntu-inspired ethic of relational respect. To begin, participants were invited to share an African proverb from their tribe that reflected their migration journey, creating a culturally resonant space for story-sharing. Each circle proceeded in four rounds, each focused on a specific research question. Following the Dare conversations, individual interviews were conducted with willing participants. While the Dare allowed for culturally grounded, collective sense-making, the individual interviews, a mainstream qualitative method, enabled participants to reflect privately on their experiences, offering additional layers of nuance and personal meaning. This integrative use of African Talking Circles and individual interviews exemplifies the Two-Eyed Seeing approach: drawing on indigenous and Western methods in tandem to deepen contextual insight into participants’ experiences as both individuals and community members.

This combined design responds directly to conceptual issues of systemic exclusion and epistemic injustice by ensuring that African women’s stories are co-constructed, culturally situated, and treated with interpretive care. Adopting a similar approach in consumer research could also counter symbolic exclusion, facilitate both individual and communal meaning-making, and generate deeper insights into African consumers’ identity, resilience, and vulnerability in migratory contexts-themes that remain underexplored in marketing. Consequently, our proposed methodology not only embodies a decolonizing research ethic but also contributes a promising practice for inclusive and culturally responsive consumer research.

Figure 3 provides a pictorial summary of our decolonizing research approach, guided by the principle of relationality, and shows the integration of specific Western and indigenous research methods.

Figure 3.

A decolonizing methodology framework for researching African immigrants (Source: Authors’ creation).

Furthermore, to clarify how indigenous methodologies diverge from mainstream research tools and to demonstrate their relevance to consumer research, Table 1 presents a comparative overview of decolonizing methods drawn from existing literature alongside illustrative examples from this study. This table projects how indigenous methodologies differ from conventional approaches, highlights missed opportunities in existing research, and positions our contribution as a novel integration of African-centered epistemologies within consumer research context.

Table 1.

Summary overview of decolonizing research methodologies, current applications, and potential issues they address in consumer research.

Method/Tool	Examples	How it worked in practice	How it differs from mainstream approaches in consumer research	Conceptual issues addressed
Two-Eyed Seeing	Smailhodzic et al. (2025)	Integrated indigenous and Western views to improve social media design for indigenous users.	Promotes co-learning and long-term engagement vs. extractive, time-limited research.	Epistemic injustice; DEI
	Author 1’s research with African immigrant women in NZ	Combined Dare (Ubuntu-informed) and individual interviews to blend communal and individual insights.	Blends indigenous collectivism with Western reflexivity; avoids tokenistic inclusion.	Systemic exclusion; epistemic injustice; DEI
Ubuntu	Seehawer (2018), Education; Chasi and Omarjee (2014)	Applied Ubuntu ethics in participatory action research with South African science teachers; and media analysis to resist HIV/AIDS stereotyping.	Focuses on relationality and community wellbeing vs. individual autonomy/objectivity.	DEI; misrepresentation of African identities
	Author 1’s research with African immigrant women in NZ	Engaged community elders (executives) in recruitment, used proverbs and talking circles to build relational trust.	Improves trust, contextuality, and empowerment; bridges cultural and academic spaces.	Systemic exclusion; DEI;
iCBPR	LaVeaux and Christopher (2009); Joseph (2023)	Community co-created questions, methods, and outcomes with researchers and community leadership.	Centers community voice, power-sharing, and benefit-sharing vs. researcher control.	Systemic exclusion; power imbalances; DEI
	Author 1’s research with African immigrant women in NZ	Community elders guided recruitment; participants co-shaped design and analysis.	Eliminates power imbalance; emphasizes relevance, reciprocity, and shared purpose.	Systemic exclusion, DEI, immigration and culture
African talking circles (Dare/Indaba)	Khupe (2020)	Round-based dialogue, turn-taking, and cultural rituals for respect and listening.	Contrasts with typical FGDs by mandating respect, turn-taking, and cultural symbolism.	Epistemic injustice
	Author 1’s research with African immigrant women in NZ	Used a talking piece, cultural proverbs, and post-circle interviews to deepen insight.	Prioritizes shared responsibility, community dialogue, and layered reflection.	Systemic exclusion; cultural sensitivity

(Source: Authors’ compilation).

Impact of African-centered decolonizing framework on marketing research

Within the broader context of inclusion and exclusion in markets, marketing, and consumption, the decolonizing framework of Two-Eyed Seeing and Ubuntu challenges who is studied and how knowledge about under-researched consumers (Hutton and Cappellini 2022), such as African immigrants, is interpreted and legitimized. To further clarify their impact on marketing research, we now illustrate, with examples, how these frameworks can reshape the nature of qualitative analysis.

Unlike dominant Western qualitative analysis, an analytic approach informed by Two-Eyed Seeing and Ubuntu reorients interpretation toward relationality and collective meaning-making. Rather than coding proverbs, storytelling, or group dialogue as illustrative data, these cultural forms become analytical resources that reveal shared values, moral economies, and relational identities. This is similar to the “interpretive multitasking” data analysis approach taken by Kariippanon et al. (2019). Individual narratives are interpreted in relation to communal narratives, thereby surfacing tensions between personal agency and collective responsibility. Such dynamics can be obscured in mainstream qualitative analytical approaches, and this obscurity can become institutionalized in non-Western contexts (Jafari, 2022). Table 2 outlines the contrast between conventional qualitative analysis with analysis informed by our proposed decolonizing framework.

Table 2.

Analytic implications of decolonizing framework for qualitative consumer research.

Conventional qualitative analysis	Two-Eyed Seeing & Ubuntu-informed analysis
Individual narratives coded thematically	Collective meaning-making & individual reflection
Meaning interpreted by the researcher	Meaning negotiated with participants
Culture as context	Culture as epistemology
Focus on “what happened”	Focus on meaning production, sharing, and validation
Power relations implicitly addressed	Power relations explicitly addressed

(Source: Authors’ compilation).

This analytic shift is evident in Author 1’s study of skilled African immigrant women’s employment experiences in Aotearoa New Zealand. A conventional approach (e.g., thematic analysis) might highlight themes from the Dare talking circles, such as workplace discrimination, career barriers, or adaptation strategies. However, being that the Dare circles were grounded in Ubuntu and interpreted through a Two-Eyed Seeing lens, the analysis moved beyond employment trajectories to reveal shared moral economies of migration, responsibility, and dignity. Participants articulated a collective obligation to support the success of other African women and framed leadership aspirations not solely as individual mobility but as communal representation. During a series of follow-up interviews, some of the Dare participants reported feeling respected and recognized through the turn-taking dialogue and the use of culturally resonant proverbs, describing a sense of empowerment and unity of purpose that extended beyond individual career narratives. These insights emerged through collective dialogue and would have been difficult to access through individual interviews alone.

For qualitative marketing research, at least three implications stand out to us. First, this analytic orientation disrupts deficit-based framings of immigrant or “vulnerable” consumers by revealing dignity, agency, and relational commitment embedded in market participation. Second, it expands the analytical vocabulary of consumer research to include moral economies, communal aspiration, and collective identity formation as legitimate categories of inquiry. Third, it demonstrates that inclusion within markets requires epistemic pluralism in analysis, not merely diverse sampling. Therefore, we demonstrate that Two-Eyed Seeing preserves analytic rigor while legitimizing indigenous interpretive lenses; on the other hand, Ubuntu centers relational accountability while sustaining theoretical depth. Together, our approach fulfills the call by Yalkin and Özbilgin (2022) for marketing scholars to move away from neo-colonial consumer research practices, toward a more structurally inclusive and epistemically grounded discipline as asserted by Love and Michael (2022).

Limitations of adopting a decolonizing methodology framework for researching African immigrants

As empowering as they can be in offering valuable alternatives to dominant Western paradigms, the indigenous frameworks (Ubuntu and Two-Eyed Seeing), we propose, are not without limitations. Dismantling long-standing neocolonial structures and privileges in consumer research comes with tensions, complications, and ethical challenges (Hutton and Cappellini, 2022; Kravets and Varman, 2022). For example, participatory methods that emphasize relationality and respect, such as Talking Circles or elder-led recruitment, may inadvertently reinforce existing hierarchies within communities, privileging the voices of men, elders, or those with social or economic capital. Researchers must remain reflexively aware of these dynamics and intentionally create space for more marginalized voices (e.g., women, youth, recent immigrants) by designing inclusive, flexible formats that balance respect for cultural norms with a commitment to equity.

Also, while the Two-Eyed Seeing perspective seeks to integrate indigenous and non-indigenous worldviews, such integration is not always seamless. Points of epistemological friction may arise, for instance, when Western research timelines or reporting conventions clash with indigenous relational protocols or oral traditions. To mitigate these tensions, researchers should approach the blending of worldviews with humility, openness, and a willingness to adapt. This includes engaging in ongoing dialogue with communities, being transparent about methodological decisions, and avoiding extractive or tokenistic uses of indigenous concepts. Decolonizing research requires not only methodological innovation but also continuous ethical vigilance.

Conclusion

Scholars in the marketing literature have indicated there is a need for more culturally sensitive or appropriate research. Such research could focus on different geographic regions and sectors to gain a deeper understanding of market systems (Arnould and Melea Press, 2019); expand DEI research beyond North American contexts to explore how cultural differences affect experiences of marginalization (Arsel et al., 2022); explore how diverse cultural knowledges can be integrated into mainstream consumer research (Hutton and Cappellini, 2022); and undertake a deeper exploration of marketplace exclusion from a global south perspective (Saren et al., 2019).

This paper heeds Seehawer (2018) early call for consumer research scholarship to embrace an African-oriented philosophy that decolonizes research agenda and methodology in the discipline thereby strengthening the relationship and accountability between African and mainstream consumer researchers. We do not dismiss the value of mainstream consumer research approaches. Instead, in the spirit of inclusion, which is a central theme of this marketing theory special issue, this paper advocates for the representation and empowerment of ethnic minority African immigrants by proposing innovative qualitative research methodologies that respect indigenous African worldviews and ways of knowing, particularly the Ubuntu philosophy. The Ubuntu philosophy ensures the respect of research participants’ feelings and cultural rights, fostering values of truth, honesty, respect, and harmony.

From the foregoing discussion, the significance of decolonizing research methods in consumer research cannot be overstated. Marketing researchers and businesses alike should rethink the future of business through the lens of decolonizing research methods and inclusivity. By including the voices of Africans, consumer researchers contribute to future-forward business practices by building culturally sensitive and inclusive business strategies. Consequently, our paper pushes for future studies to engage with indigenous epistemologies, worldviews, and practices of Africans irrespective of the lands in which marketing research is actually practiced and debated.