The Fourth Research Tradition

How can universities in the Global North truly decolonize knowledge and dismantle the hierarchies that continue to shape their classrooms and institutions?

The Fourth Research Tradition: Lessons from the Third World in Decolonizing Higher Education by Marsha Myrie Obi challenges the dominance of Western epistemologies by turning to the Caribbean intellectual tradition—a model born out of resistance, reconstruction, and radical inclusivity. Drawing on the legacy of Commonwealth Caribbean universities, this book explores how transplanted peoples redefined identity, knowledge, and pedagogy by rejecting colonial hierarchies and embracing transdisciplinary, anti-oppressive practices.

Through a compelling synthesis of critical theory, lived experience, and educational practice, Marsha Myrie Obi offers a roadmap for reimagining universities as spaces of liberation, empathy, and equity.

Ideal for early and mid-career faculty, educational developers, and scholars in critical pedagogy, Caribbean Studies, and equity-driven higher education reform, as well as readers in the Caribbean diaspora seeking models of transformative learning.

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• Learning Outcomes
• Introduction
• Methodological notes
• Intellectual traditions, history and romanticism
• Notes on the Caribbean
• Decolonizing knowledge making
• On social death
• The chapters
• 1 Knowledge hegemony and colonialization
• The logics of dehumanization
• Samuel Augustus Mathews
• John Jacob Thomas
• The Canon
• A word on the CIT and gender
• Contribution of the CIT to Western Theory
• Knowledge making as therapy
• 2 Building Commonwealth Caribbean identity and academy
• Caribbean metatheory
• Establishment of Caribbean universities
• Fighting for space in knowledge hegemony
• Rereading the Grenada Revolution
• Publication cold war: Stifling the CIT
• Conclusion
• 3 The fourth research tradition
• Unfinished work in the CIT-critique is good for the soul
• The fourth research culture – features and characteristics
• Transdisciplinarity, the Caribbean university and Western change
• Conclusion
• The scrapbook
• The 1968 UWI student protest and the red revolution from below
• The meaning of education in the Caribbean
• On depending on government scholarships to attend UWI
• Influences on Caribbean scholarship
• Notes
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• References
• Suggested discussion topics
• Further reading
• Index
• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• Learning Outcomes
• Introduction
  • Methodological notes
    • Intellectual traditions, history and romanticism
    • Notes on the Caribbean
    • Decolonizing knowledge making
    • On social death
  • The chapters
• 1 Knowledge hegemony and colonialization
  • The logics of dehumanization
  • Samuel Augustus Mathews
  • John Jacob Thomas
  • The Canon
    • A word on the CIT and gender
  • Contribution of the CIT to Western Theory
  • Knowledge making as therapy
• 2 Building Commonwealth Caribbean identity and academy
  • Caribbean metatheory
  • Establishment of Caribbean universities
  • Fighting for space in knowledge hegemony
    • Rereading the Grenada Revolution
    • Publication cold war: Stifling the CIT
  • Conclusion
• 3 The fourth research tradition
  • Unfinished work in the CIT-critique is good for the soul
    • The fourth research culture – features and characteristics
  • Transdisciplinarity, the Caribbean university and Western change
  • Conclusion
  • The scrapbook
  • The 1968 UWI student protest and the red revolution from below
  • The meaning of education in the Caribbean
  • On depending on government scholarships to attend UWI
  • Influences on Caribbean scholarship
• Notes
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1
  • Chapter 2
  • Chapter 3
• References
• Suggested discussion topics
• Further reading
• Index

Marsha Myrie Obi is an educator, scholar, and public intellectual whose work bridges Caribbean, African, and diasporic traditions to advance anti-oppressive and decolonial pedagogy.