Researching Indigenous Moral Heritage amid Active Conflict: A Decolonial Methodology for Studying Nrunga among the Hema and Lendu

Abstract

This study presents and evaluates the methodology developed to study Nrunga, an indigenous moral heritage of humanness shared by the Hema and Lendu communities of Djugu Territory, Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, during active armed conflict. It used an indigenous-led qualitative design based on sensory participant ethnography and abductive logic. Fifty-eight purposively selected participants, drawn from four Hema and four Lendu communities of Djugu and from Hema and Lendu residents of Bunia, including displaced persons, took part in 20 storytelling interviews and five talking circles between December 2024 and December 2025. Ten institutional documents were also analysed. Analysis combined three layers: inductive thematic analysis in NVivo 15, the Nrunga Reflexive Interview and Talking-circle Analysis Tool (NRITAT) and a Critical Document Analysis Matrix (CDAM). Interview saturation was reached after about fifteen interviews. The four sensitising dimensions of Nrunga were confirmed and also complicated by the data. A descriptive comparison of the two coding procedures showed low overall agreement (39.3%) but high agreement for Nrunga heritage (92%) and conflict dynamics (69%). Among the ten documents examined, those produced by international bodies largely ignored Nrunga, while the locally produced ones treated it as central. The study is a single case shaped by the first author’s insider position, and its definitional accounts came mainly from elders and clergy. It offers a transparent, community-developed model for decolonial research in conflict-affected African settings.