Research without researchers: southern theory critique of research practices

Abstract. The metropolitan rootedness of urban studies has been under critique for more than 2 decades. The call for more studies from “elsewhere” and theorization from “outside” the North Atlantic circuits of knowledge production has changed the landscape of urban theory. However, the genius loci of this urban theory still lies in the metropolis (centre of power and knowledge). One key reason for this metropolitan locatedness is the lack of attention paid to geo- and bio-politics of knowledge which separates/excludes the ontological location of the researchers from research practice. This separation/exclusion allows a research practice wherein data are produced from the field, theorization happens elsewhere, and the researcher manages this process (as objectively as possible). This schema evades the locationality of research questions/concerns, as to where they come from, and how the ontological location of the researcher produces them. This paper discusses the need to recentre the researcher to evade what allegorically becomes “research without researchers”.