Conducting Research with Minoritized Groups: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections about Power and Coloniality

This presentation reflects on the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological challenges of conducting research with minoritized groups, drawing on a research agenda centered on collective memory, state and political violence, ideologies, and intergroup relations, among other topics. It discusses how questions of power and coloniality relate to not only what and who we study, but also how we study it, considering the practical and ethical dilemmas that arise when conducting research with minoritized communities such as migrant, indigenous, and gender-diverse groups. The talk concludes with a series of reflections for students and researchers navigating the gap between conceptual frameworks and the realities of fieldwork in contexts shaped by historical injustice and ongoing power asymmetries, with the aim of contributing to more reflexive, ethical, and context-sensitive research practices. 

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Ana Figueiredo (she/her) is a psychologist and holds a PhD in Social Psychology (Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal, in collaboration with the Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands). She is currently Associate Professor at the Universidad de O’Higgins (Chile) and principal investigator at the Millennium Institute for Authority and Social Regulation. Ana is currently the Director of the Observatory of Violence and Social Legitimacy. In 2025, she was awarded a project to work about police-minority group interactions, focused on the experiences and perceptions of Mapuche and migrant communities, as well as youths from low socioeconomic backgrounds in Chile. Ana is co-Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, part of the Editorial Board of the Journal Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, and member of the Editorial Council of the Ibero-American Journal of Psychology and Public Policy. In January 2026 she started serving a 3-year term as elected Member-at-Large for the Society of Peace, Conflict and Violence (Division 48, APA). Previously, she was Associate Researcher at the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies. In July 2024 she finished a 3-year term as elected member of the Governing Council of the International Society of Political Psychology. Her research agenda primarily focuses on coloniality, collective memory, historical conflicts, state and political violence, intergroup relations, ideologies, power and resistance, collective action, and interactions between police and minority groups, among other topics.