A Decolonial Turn in the Humanities (original) (raw)
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Discourses of Decolonization/Decoloniality
2019
The decolonization/decoloniality of the twenty-first century should not be confused with postmodernism and postcolonialism, which cascaded from the powerful Euro-North American academies as well as from the influence of South Asian Subaltern Studies collective.1 In Politics and Post-Colonial Theory: African Inflections and Out of Africa: Post-Structuralism’s Colonial Roots, in fact, Pal Ahluwalia highlights the African roots (Maghreb region) of postcolonialism as he grappled with the writings of Jacques Derrida and Helene Cixous (born in French-colonial Algeria) as well as Michel Foucault (who spent time in Tunisia). What is poignant is that while postcolonialism and postmodernism have multiple valences, the former is used mainly with reference to the “non-Western” world and the later to “Western/white world” (Adesanmi 74). Because of their ubiquity with North American scholarship, Pius Adesanmi depicted postcolonialism and postmodernism as products of “the suffocating influence of ...
TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 2011
This special issue of Transmodernity, "Thinking through the Decolonial Turn: Post-Continental Interventions in Theory, Philosophy, and Critique," stands on three fundamental premises that serve as the starting point for the dialogical encounters between intellectuals from Latin America, the Caribbean, and from minoritized sectors in the United States, particularly Latina/o and African American, who are featured here. The first one is that just as there has been a linguistic and a pragmatic turn, among other such turns in theory and philosophy, there has also being a decolonial turn with distinct features, some of which will be elucidated in these two issues. 1 Different from these other turns, however, the decolonial turn has long existed in different ways, opposing what could be called the colonizing turn in Western thought, by what I mean the paradigm of discovery and newness that also included the gradual propagation of capitalism, racism, the modern/gender system, and the naturalization of the death ethics of war. 2 The second premise or fundamental hypothesis is that the decolonial turn is anchored in specific forms of skepticism and epistemic attitudes out of which certain critical questions and the search for answers are generated. And the third is that this turn, its form of skepticism and attitude, are arguably most at home in spaces such as ethnic studies and gender and women's studies departments, units, and research centers in the Western academy, as well as in different institutions such as indigenous universities and among decolonial activists, independent scholars, and artists across the entire spectrum of the Global South, including the south in the north. 3 To be sure, that the decolonial turn is particularly at home in spaces such as ethnic, women, or gender studies does not mean that every scholar in such spaces is effectively thinking through and contributing to the decolonial turn, or that the decolonial turn can only be found in such spaces. Arguably, because of its emancipatory goals and its suspension of method, the decolonial turn cannot be fully contained in single units of study, or captured within the standard division of labor between disciplines or areas in the traditional arts and sciences. What is at stake is the larger task of the very decolonization of knowledge, power, and being, including institutions such as the university. 4 The Decolonial Turn I have provided an initial genealogy and a description of the decolonial turn elsewhere, and Walter Mignolo adds important considerations in his contribution to this issue, but a succinct introductory note is in place here. 5 Decolonial thinking has existed since the very inception of modern forms of colonization-that is, since at least the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries-, and, to that extent, a certain decolonial turn has existed as well, but the more massive
Journal of Latin American Studies, 2021
As we know, public and academic debate is made up of "moments", even of "turns", A few years ago, for example, we were in the middle of what Peter Thomas called "the Gramscian moment" (Thomas 2009). A moment, like the one we are going to tackle today, also driven by the global spread of postcolonial and decolonial studies. It is hard to deny, in fact, that we are living nowadays, in a "decolonisation moment". Decolonisation has increasingly become one of the key terms in the various fields of cultural debate and knowledge production in recent years. It is not difficult to see that this is a global trend, affecting both the global North and South. Particularly, in the global North, we have increasingly witnessed campaigns such as "decolonise Universities", "decolonise Education", "why is my Curriculum White", "Liberate my degree" (Bhambra, Gebrial Nisancioglu 2018), and on the trail of Black Lives Matter Europe (2019), this "historical shift" of decolonisation has expanded, perhaps for the first time here, to monuments, urban topography, museums, and cultural production in general, giving thus a another significant expression to what
In Defense of Decolonial Philistinism
Cultural Politics, 2017
This article engages with the theoretical challenges posed by what it polemically calls the philistine tendencies of current decolonization struggles in South Africa, spearheaded by students at tertiary institutions of learning since autumn 2015. This refers to the employment of extreme, confrontational, crude, and violent cultural strategies of contestation, such as vandalism, destruction, and removal of cultural artifacts from the colonialist or apartheid era. The article aims to reappropriate predominantly stigmatizing and derogatory depictions and theorizations of such radical cultural politics in terms of philistinism. For this purpose, it articulates a more positive, critical, and dialectical notion of philistinism and the destruction and hatred of art. It does so by looking into essential work done by Fredric Jameson in the early 1990s regarding the crucial presence of the others or enemies of art in Theodor Adorno’s work on aesthetics, as well as Jameson’s redemptive reading of Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s analysis of the anti-Semite qua philistine. It uses the latter to argue that philistine acts committed by contemporary decolonial cultural activists are not entirely incomprehensible, illegitimate, or self-defeating but manifest a certain truth—albeit a partial one—regarding the structural guilt, complicity, and inconsequentiality of art and culture in a racially divided society such as South Africa.
Who decides? In whose name? For whose benefit? Decoloniality and its discontents (2020)
On Education: Journal for Research and Debate, 2020
The growing traction of decolonization as a discourse and practice within and beyond the context of academic scholarship has generated important spaces for critical, self-reflexive engagements with the role of systemic, historical, and ongoing colonial violence in the foundations of various scholarly fields. Although the overarching area of “decolonial critique” contains a considerable range of perspectives, both complementary and contradictory, overall these perspectives challenge the common assumption that colonialism is “over”, pointing instead to the ways that it has persisted and shapeshifted both in settler colonial countries (where the colonizing power never ‘left’), as well as in purportedly decolonized countries that are nonetheless characterized by “patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism, but that define culture, labor, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations” (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 243). In addition to denaturalizing and historicizing the colonial present – that is, the ways that colonial relations continue to organize everyday contemporary life – decolonial critiques also gesture toward alternative possibilities for knowing, being, and relating. These alternatives are not sanctioned by, and in fact are often ignored or actively suppressed within, mainstream institutions and discourses. While decolonial critique has been around for a long time, arguably since the onset of European colonialism in the 15th century, its recent growing popularity has prompted many critical responses. These responses range from Indigenous scholars who express frustration with how decolonization has been conflated with other social justice projects premised on representation, recognition, and redistribution within a reformed but still-colonial system (Tuck & Yang, 2012), to the vitriolic backlash of right-wing groups who warn that decolonial critiques are nefarious efforts to eradicate white, western ways of life. Yet beyond these two highly visible perspectives are perhaps the more common responses from researchers who question claims about the enduring character of colonialism and challenge the legitimacy of decolonial critiques in more subtle ways. Rather than dismissing them outright, they offer seemingly reasoned engagements with decolonial critiques that nonetheless ultimately conclude that the critiques are premised on scholarship that does not hold up to careful scrutiny, nor meet accepted (Eurocentric) standards of academic rigour, rationality, and social impact. Although these approaches are much less direct in their dismissal than those that attack decolonial critique on principle, ultimately, they tend to come to a similar conclusion that suggests these critiques are of little social or scholarly value. Because these engagements are articulated within the standard discourse and political orientation of mainstream scholarly critique, they tend to carry significant weight both within and beyond higher education institutions, and thus, they warrant a response. This is what we offer here.
An editorial: Introducing the Special Issue of Decolonial Subversions
Decolonial Subversions Special Issue, 2023
This Special Issue of Decolonial Subversions on the theme of decolonising the university and the role of linguistic diversity is motivated by a desire to expand critical conversations on the potential of linguistic inclusion in higher education. The Special Issue is multi-/trans-disciplinary, multilingual and multimodal with contributions from authors living and working in Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and South Africa. Contributors are teachers, comedy writers, poets, and university researchers. This diversity enriches the Special Issue as a whole, as authors address the issue of decolonising the university and the role of language in the diversification of knowledge in ways that are sensitive to their own histories, contexts and positionality.
Decolonisation and deconstruction
Radical Philosophy, 2019
Abdelkebir Khatibi’s collection of essays was first published in French in 1983 as Maghreb Pluriel. It comprises six essays originally published between (roughly) 1970 and 1982 in various venues. The first three essays of the collection – ‘Other-Thought’, ‘Double Critique’ and ‘Disoriented Orientalism’ – are the best-known, and, as Françoise Lionnet has noted, have long been out of print. From this perspective, the English translation is certainly welcome, if not without its problems. It is not clear, for example, why the editors of Bloomsbury’s series ‘Suspensions’, or perhaps the book’s translator, felt the need to add the subtitle ‘Writings on Postcolonialism’, which does not appear in the original. Why the need to attach Khatibi to a corpus he never clearly acknowledged in his writings? For two decades after the publication of Maghreb Pluriel, critics have lamented that Khatibi was never included alongside the likes of Said, Fanon, Césaire and Memmi in the canon of postcolonial thought. But little justification has been offered as to why that should have been the case – does any intellectual who thinks about and hails from a formerly colonised space need to be part of postcolonial thought?
Editorial introduction: decolonizing Critical African Studies
Critical African Studies
At Critical African Studies, we often publish special issues that bring together a collection of papers examining a cutting edge topic in African Studies or examining in new perspective a long-standing area of theory and inquiry. This issue is different; it brings together some of the many individual articles submitted independently to the journal. It captures the ethos and vibrancy of Critical African Studies and of the broader multidisciplinary landscape of African studies as a whole. Some of this vibrancy was reflected at a flagship roundtable organized by Critical African Studies in June at the 2019 AEGIS European Conference on African Studies, hosted by the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. We convened a conversation with leading voices in discourse and activism to Decolonize African Studies, part of a longer term, multifaceted initiative that the journal has been undertaking for several years. Attended by almost a hundred conference participants, the symposium asked the crucial question, 'If everyone is decolonizing, why does so little seem to change?' The roundtable, moderated by Zoe Marks (Critical African Studies co-chair) included Simukai Chigudu, Marie Deridder, Elieth Eyebiyi, Simeon Koromo, Duduzile Ndlovu, and Njoki Wamai. This brought together decolonizingthemed panel convenors from across the ECAS programme, as well as contributors from a special issue of Critical African Studies to discuss tensions, setbacks, and progress toward equity and radical inclusivity in African Studies. The speakers represented some of the continent's geographic breadth and spoke to experiences of both francophone and anglophone colonialities. Each speaker opened with a discussion of their perspectives on and experience of decolonial praxis. From a range of disciplinary backgrounds, different nationalities and institutions, and at different career stages, they spoke about how their experiences, values, interests, and positionality shape their views. Elieth Eyebiyi gave compelling remarks in both French and English about linguistic imperialism and anglophone supremacy in African Studies. His comments were echoed by Marie Deridder, who spoke about the relative lack of decolonizing discourse in non-Englishspeaking African Studies circles and the challenges for building a multilingual open access knowledge economy. Duduzile Ndlovu described how her incorporation of poetry and creative methodologies had opened new avenues for scholar-activism, solidarity with the communities in which she conducts research, and most importantly, finding her own academic voice. Simukai Chigudu reflected on being at the frontlines of protest in Oxford's #RhodesMustFall movement, and how the struggle continues for him now within the system, where he contends still with issues of power and inequality. The conversation examined how research and practice interface in Simeon Koroma's comments, which brought out the challenges of doing North-South research partnerships, where power and material resources are often held by those with less longterm investment in and commitment to the communities where African partners are based. Njoki Wamai articulated how these inequalities pertain to African academic institutions, as well, providing a feminist, intersectional lens for understanding the challenges of navigating transcontinental