Decolonizing the Academy asserts that the academy,is perhaps the most colonized space. At the same,time the academy is a place of knowledge and,transformation. As we move into the 21st century,it is becoming clear that the academy is one of,the primary sites for the production and,reproduction of ideas that serve the interests of,colonising powers. This collection of essays,argues the possibility of re-engaging the,decolonizing process at the level of knowledge and,asserts that this is an ongoing project worthy of,being undertaken in a variety of fields.
"A must-read for anyone interested in enhancing a historical understanding of our present through a consideration of what it means to decolonize."--Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town demanded the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist, racist business magnate, from their campus. Their battle cry, #RhodesMustFall, sparked an international movement calling for the decolonization of universities all over the world. Today, as the movement develops beyond the picket line, how might it go on to radically transform the terms upon which universities exist? In this book, students, activists, and scholars discuss the possibilities and the pitfalls of doing decolonial work in the heart of the establishment. Subverting curricula, demanding diversity, and destroying old boundaries, this is a radical call for a new era of education. Chapters include: *Rhodes Must Fall: Oxford and Movements for Change (Dalia Febrial) *Race and the Neoliberal University ((John Holmwood) *Black/Academia (Robbie Shilliam) *The Challenge for Black Studies in the Neoliberal University (Kehinde Andrews) *Open Initiatives for Decolonising the Curriculum (Pat Lockley) *Decolonising Education: A Pedagogic Intervention (Carol Azumah Dennis) *Understanding Eurocentrism as a Structural Problem of Undone Science (William Jamal Richardson) As the book's insightful Introduction states, "Taking colonialism as a global project as a starting point, it becomes difficult to turn away from the Western university as a key site through which colonialism--and colonial knowledge in particular--is produced, consecrated, institutionalized and naturalized." Offering resources for students and academics to challenge and resist colonialism inside and outside the classroom, Decolonizing the University provides the tools for radical change in educational disciplines, pedagogies, and institutions.
This book reveals the roots of structural racism that limit social mobility and equality within Britain for Black and ethnicised students and academics in its inherently white Higher Education institutions. It brings together both established and emerging scholars in the fields of Race and Education to explore what institutional racism in British Higher Education looks like in colour-blind 'post-race' times, when racism is deemed to be ‘off the political agenda’. Keeping pace with our rapidly changing global universities, this edited collection asks difficult and challenging questions, including why black academics leave the system; why the curriculum is still white; how elite universities reproduce race privilege; and how Black, Muslim and Gypsy traveller students are disadvantaged and excluded. The book also discusses why British racial equality legislation has failed to address racism, and explores what the Black student movement is doing about this. As the authors powerfully argue, it is only by dismantling the invisible architecture of post-colonial white privilege that the 21st century struggle for a truly decolonised academy can begin. This collection will be essential reading for students and academics working in the fields of Education, Sociology, and Race.
Recurrent clamours by students and academics for universities in Africa and elsewhere, to imbibe and exude a spirit of inclusion are a continual reminder that universities can and need to be much more convivial. Processes of knowledge production that champion delusions of superiority and zero-sum games of absolute winners and losers are elitist and un-convivial. Academic disciplines tend to encourage introversion and emphasise exclusionary fundamentalisms of heartlands rather than highlight inclusionary overtures of borderlands. Frequenting crossroads and engaging in frontier conversations are frowned upon, if not prohibited. The scarcity of conviviality in universities, within and between disciplines, and among scholars results in highly biased knowledge processes. The production and consumption of knowledge are socially and politically mediated by webs of humanity, hierarchies of power, and instances of human agency. Given the resilience of colonial education throughout Africa and among Africans, endogenous traditions of knowledge are barely recognised and grossly underrepresented. What does conviviality in knowledge production entail? It involves conversing and collaborating across disciplines and organisations and integrating epistemologies informed by popular universes and ideas of reality. Convivial scholarship is predicated upon recognising and providing for incompleteness - in persons, disciplines, and traditions of knowing and knowledge making.
Poetic, confrontational and radical, Decolonizing Academia speaks to those who have been taught to doubt themselves because of the politics of censorship, violence and silence that sustain the Ivory Tower. Clelia O. Rodríguez illustrates how academia is a racialized structure that erases the voices of people of colour, particularly women. She offers readers a gleam of hope through the voice of an inquisitorial thinker and methods of decolonial expression, including poetry, art and reflections that encompass much more than theory. In Decolonizing Academia, Rodríguez passes the torch to her Latinx offspring to use as a tool to not only survive academic spaces but also dismantle systems of oppression. Through personal anecdotes, creative non-fiction and unflinching bravery, Rodríguez reveals how people of colour are ignored, erased and consumed in the name of research and tenured academic positions. Her work is a survival guide for people of colour entering academia.
This book brings together voices from the Global South and Global North to think through what it means, in practice, to decolonise contemporary higher education. Occasionally, a theoretical concept arises in academic debate that cuts across individual disciplines. Such concepts – which may well have already been in use and debated for some time - become suddenly newly and increasingly important at a particular historical juncture. Right now, debates around decolonisation are on the rise globally, as we become increasingly aware that many of the old power imbalances brought into play by colonialism have not gone away in the present. The authors in this volume bring theories of decoloniality into conversation with the structural, cultural, institutional, relational and personal logics of curriculum, pedagogy and teaching practice. What is enabled, in practice, when academics set out to decolonize their teaching spaces? What commonalities and differences are there where academics set out to do so in universities across disparate political and geographical spaces? This book explores what is at stake when decolonial work is taken from the level of theory into actual practice. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Third World Thematics.
Recurrent clamours by students and academics for universities in Africa and elsewhere, to imbibe and exude a spirit of inclusion are a continual reminder that universities can and need to be much more convivial. Processes of knowledge production that champion delusions of superiority and zero-sum games of absolute winners and losers are elitist and un-convivial. Academic disciplines tend to encourage introversion and emphasise exclusionary fundamentalisms of heartlands rather than highlight inclusionary overtures of borderlands. Frequenting crossroads and engaging in frontier conversations are frowned upon, if not prohibited. The scarcity of conviviality in universities, within and between disciplines, and among scholars results in highly biased knowledge processes. The production and consumption of knowledge are socially and politically mediated by webs of humanity, hierarchies of power, and instances of human agency. Given the resilience of colonial education throughout Africa and among Africans, endogenous traditions of knowledge are barely recognised and grossly underrepresented. What does conviviality in knowledge production entail? It involves conversing and collaborating across disciplines and organisations and integrating epistemologies informed by popular universes and ideas of reality. Convivial scholarship is predicated upon recognising and providing for incompleteness in persons, disciplines, and traditions of knowing and knowledge making.
This book provides a forensic and collective examination of pre-existing understandings of structural inequalities in Higher Education Institutions. Going beyond the current understandings of causal factors that promote inequality, the editors and contributors illuminate the dynamic interplay between historical events and discourse and more sophisticate and racialized acts of violence. In doing so, the book crystallises myriad contemporary manifestations of structural racism in higher education. Amidst an upsurge in racialized violence, civil unrest, and barriers to attainment, progression and success for students and staff of colour, doing equity and diversity for success in higher education has become both politically urgent and morally imperative. This book calls for a redistribution of power across intersectional and racial lines as a means of decentering whiteness and redressing structural inequalities in the academy. It is essential reading for scholars of sociology and education, as well as those interested in equality and social justice.
Drawing on treaties, international law, the work of other Indigenous scholars, and especially personal experiences, Marie Battiste documents the nature of Eurocentric models of education, and their devastating impacts on Indigenous knowledge. Chronicling the negative consequences of forced assimilation, racism inherent to colonial systems of education, and the failure of current educational policies for Aboriginal populations, Battiste proposes a new model of education, arguing the preservation of Aboriginal knowledge is an Aboriginal right. Central to this process is the repositioning of Indigenous humanities, sciences, and languages as vital fields of knowledge, revitalizing a knowledge system which incorporates both Indigenous and Eurocentric thinking.
Introduction: The Decolonial Moments -- Epistemologies and Methodologies -- Decoloniality and Decolonizing Knowledge -- Eurocentrism and Intellectual Imperialism -- Epistemologies of Intellectual Liberation -- Decolonizing Knowledge in Africa -- Decolonizing Research Methodology -- Oral Tradition: Cultural Analysis and Epistemic Value -- Agencies and Voices -- Voices of Decolonization -- Voices of Decoloniality -- Decoloniality: A Critique -- Women's Voices on Decolonization -- Empowering Marginal Voices: LGBTQ and African Studies -- Intellectual Spaces -- Decolonizing the African Academy -- Decolonizing Knowledge Through Language -- Decolonizing of African Literature -- Identity and the African Feminist Writers -- Decolonizing African Aesthetics -- Decolonizing African History -- Decolonizing Africa Religion -- Decolonizing African Philosophy -- African Futurism.
