Decolonizing Knowledge

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Radha D'Souza, Sunera Thobani

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9798765125489
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

Interdisciplinary scholars rethink strategies for moving contemporary decolonization politics forward by revisiting the writings of the mid-20th century anti-colonial movements' leading intellectuals. Decolonizing Knowledge draws on intellectual histories of anti-colonial thinkers who developed their ideas of decolonization through practical engagement with struggles for freedom from colonialism. Reading works by J.P.S. Uberoi, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, C.L.R. James and Andaiye, among others, interdisciplinary activist scholars reflect on the meaning of decolonization that emerged from anti-colonial struggles of the past and its relevance today. Each chapter in the volume reflects on one or more texts from anti-colonial thinkers of the past to draw out the meaning of decolonization as conceptualized by earlier generations, providing key insights from their thinking and examining their relevance for contemporary struggles for racial, gender and class justice. With authors writing from multiple disciplines, these essays straddle a range of themes from theory and practice, art and literature, gender and violence, and political economy, to address a subject that is preoccupying academia and activists in the 21st century. Decolonizing Knowledge is an intervention into contemporary debates on decolonizing curricula and universities, arguing that these calls need to be firmly engaged in wider social practices for justice, and that they can learn much from those who wrote on the topic amid the 20th century's many struggles for freedom.

Table of contents

• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Decolonizing knowledge: Science, scientists and science education
• Chapter 3: Decolonization, feminist politics and the ‘Muslim woman’s question’: Reading Fanon in the context of the Afghan and Gaza wars
• Chapter 4: On ethnographic refusal: Indigeneity, ‘voice’ and colonial citizenship
• Chapter 5: Fire: The decolonial pedagogy of subversion in Césaire and Djonga
• Chapter 6: Class and struggle: Cabral, Rodney and the complexities of culture in Africa
• Chapter 7: The politics and place of Rajani Palme Dutt
• Chapter 8: Labour super-exploitation, Black liberation and communist thought
• Chapter 9: Before intersectionality: Difference, exploitation and emancipation in Ruy Mauro Marini, Walter Rodney and Andaiye
• Chapter 10: From statehood to democratic confederalism: Decolonization and Abdullah Öcalan’s solution to the Kurdish question
• Chapter 11: Reflecting on coloniality of power, colonial violence and decolonization through the University of Rojava
• Index