Methodology as learning to dance with shifting sand: Beyond verisimilitude

Abstract This paper argues that for reasons of epistemic justice and academic rigour alike, methodologies will benefit from allowing themselves to remain open to the unexpected. A well‐documented reason for this is the fact of our capacity for understanding stretching only to verisimilitude rather than to omniscience: we cannot anticipate all relevant questions even about an existing, unfamiliar state of affairs, as initially surprising questions may come into view as our process of familiarisation unfolds. Frequently overlooked, an additional dynamic requires accommodation once the issue is considered from within a participationalist paradigm: we cannot anticipate all that we may be involved in co‐creating. These points are argued first and foremost from the work of contemporary Indigenous philosophers. Aspects of contemporary Western science and philosophy are presented as initial aids to Western familiarisation with these, subsequently to be left behind in favour of engagement with Indigenous paradigms on their own terms.