Bagele Chilisa

Bagele Chilisa is a Botswanan post-colonial scholar who has written and spoken extensively about indigenous research and evaluation methodologies. She is a full professor at the University of Botswana, where she teaches courses on social science research methods and evaluation research to undergraduate and graduate students. Chilisa has served as an evaluator on multiple global projects, and is considered to be an important "African thought leader." Chilisa identifies as a member of the Bantu people of Africa.

Quotes

• "The book is on indigenous research methodologies. These are a family of methods informed by the indigenous world views. A methodology that is not embedded in paradigmatic space loses its meaning,".
• "An Indigenous research method targets local phenomenon instead using extant theory from the West. Take, for example, a study to develop an indigenous measure of common mental disorders in a primary care setting among the Shona people in Zimbabwe,  and to examine the psychometric properties of the measure.   It is important for the research to understand the meaning of mental disorders   from the perspective of the community where the research is conducted," .
•  "The Shona mental health measurement scale is discussed in Chapter 5  where it is contrasted with the WHO mental health scale. New mental health constructs were created based on Shona perspectives of what mental health is.   What is important to note is that the local constructs were integrated with international constructs to give a holistic picture of what can be known about mental health,".
  • Q & A with Dr. Bagele Chilisa, Part 1,