Culturally disruptive qualitative research: troubling whiteness in research cultures

Culturally responsive research (CRR) posits that culture is always present and should thus be a fundamental organizing principle in all facets of inquiry. However, within whitestream research cultures this work can be assimilated into the white, colonial logics it seeks to resist. In this paper, I offer a loving critique and critical reimagining of CRR by tracing its genealogy, situating contemporary research within whiteness and coloniality, and identifying three contraindications for researching while white—defining cultures, engaging in reflexivity, and employing cultural competence. Building on these critiques, I explore the potential of shifting from cultural responsivity to cultural disruption. Drawing from my experiences in Aotearoa New Zealand and Cambodia, I discuss culturally disruptive research as one method to dismantle the cultural foundations of research that perpetuate white supremacy. Cultural disruption invites researchers into spaces of desire, dynamic dissonance, and relational negotiations to foreground creative, critical, and capacious knowledge generation.