Af’idatul Husniyah
This paper proposes Ngopi—the culturally embedded practice of informal coffee gatherings—as a decolonial methodology for qualitative research in the Indonesian context. Grounded in everyday social interactions, Ngopi offers a space for organic, trust-based conversations that reflect local ways of knowing, sharing, and co-creating knowledge. Unlike Western extractive models of data collection that often impose rigid researcher-participant boundaries, Ngopi operates through relationality, fluidity, and mutual exchange. As a decolonial approach, it challenges dominant paradigms by centering a culturally embedded practice within Indonesia and honoring the lived experiences, language, and social rhythms of participants. Through Ngopi, this paper argues for a methodological shift that not only reclaims local traditions of knowledge-making but also repositions them as legitimate, rigorous, and vital in the landscape of global research practices. © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Politeknik Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia