Decolonizing the academy

Two day graduate and faculty seminar led by Ramón Grosfoguel 
(UC-Berkeley) and one day conference
University of Edinburgh
24-26 February 2015

The University of Edinburgh’s Global Development Academy in 
collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Latin Studies is 
developing a series of activities and initiatives that engage with 
questions of decolonization and decoloniality.  We have two main aims in 
this regard. The first is to support through our teaching, research and 
networking activities individuals, communities and social movements 
engaged in decolonial struggles, that are seeking to address the 
legacies of colonialism and ongoing modes of coloniality. Indigenous, 
Afro-descended and other decolonial movements are calling the 
development project into question in a myriad of ways that have 
implications for our work and our global development focus. The second 
is to contribute to efforts to decolonize the westernized academy. While 
traditional universities can be sites of radical thought, they have 
generally struggled to embrace and accommodate non-western thought and 
worldviews, functioning instead on a basis of epistemic ignorance. It is 
essential therefore that our curricula and research programmes create 
spaces for theoretical and methodological approaches that are relevant 
for indigenous, Afro-descended and colonized populations. We also need 
to seek ways to disrupt the modernist divisions between arts and 
sciences reflected in our institutional structures and take up the 
intellectual agendas being advanced by decolonial scholars. Scholarship 
identified with the Modernity/Coloniality/Decoloniality (MCD) paradigm 
locates the start of modernity not with the Enlightenment but with the 
conquest of America in the 15th century, and recognizes the 
inseparability of the capitalist world system from the dynamics of 
colonialism. Modernity and coloniality are therefore mutually 
constituted. Coloniality did however create the conditions for border 
thinking and interculturality and for the decentring of Eurocentric 
thought. Despite the modes of epistemic violence wrought by colonial 
practices, decolonial thought persists and provides important resources 
for dealing with the legacies of the past and the challenges of the 
present.

In February 2016, we will be joined by prominent decolonial scholar 
Ramón Grosfoguel of UC-Berkeley, who will run a two day postgraduate and 
faculty course. He will also participate as the keynote speaker at a 
one-day conference focused on questions of decolonization and 
decoloniality. Both events are free of charge, but registration and 
acceptance of a place are required.

24 and 25 February 2016
Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and the Paradigms of Political Economy
Led by Ramón Grosfoguel, UC-Berkeley

This two-day course will discuss the cartography of power and the 
structures of knowledge of the world-system we have inhabited since the 
16th century. It will decolonize the paradigms of political-economy and 
post-colonial studies. Finally, it will discuss transmodernity as an 
alternative that moves beyond the world-system of today. It will be of 
interest to scholars and students already working with questions of 
decoloniality/decolonization, or for those who wish to gain an 
introduction to this field of knowledge. It will be of particular use to 
lecturers and researchers seeking to decolonize their classrooms, 
curricula, teaching practice, research and writing. Participants 
accepted into the course will be sent a readings package in advance.
The course will cover five key modules:


FIRST: The Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the 16th Century, the 
Westernized University and Modern/Colonial Epistemology

SECOND: Epistemic Racism/Sexism: Decolonizing the Western Concept of 
Universalism

THIRD: What is racism?: The Fanonian Zone of Being and Zone of Non-Being

FOURTH: Decolonizing Paradigms of Political-Economy

FIFTH: Transmodernity and Decolonization of the world-system

Places are free but limited, so registration is required. The names of 
people who seek to register after all available places are taken will be 
added to a waitlist.  If you would to apply for a place, please fill in 
the application form and send to: [log in to unmask] by 9 December 2015.

The application form can be found here:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/global-development/news-events/events-section/decolonizing-the-academy

Friday 26 February 2016

One-day conference: Decolonizing the academy, University of Edinburgh
Keynote speaker: Ramón Grosfoguel, UC- Berkeley

Call for papers

We welcome panel and abstract submissions for papers engaging with 
questions of decolonization/decoloniality. We welcome scholars working 
in and on any geographical region, but we are particularly interested in 
work on the Americas and Africa and dialogues between them. Possible 
themes include:

Decolonial social movements and political projects
Decolonial, non-capitalist and revolutionary subjectivities, 
epistemologies, ontologies, philosophies and theologies
Past and present forms of slavery and demands for slavery reparations
Epistemic violence
Dimensions of the colonial matrix of power, including gender and 
sexuality, institutions, knowledge and authority
Theoretical engagements with decolonial thinkers
Border thinking and non-linear forms of knowledge
Transmodernity
The politics of buen vivir
Power beyond the state
Meanings, discourses and representations of blackness/indigeneity
The Africa diaspora, the Black Atlantic, the Black Pacific
Racism/anti-racism
Decentring Eurocentrism
Interactions between MCD and postcolonial studies
Questions of cultural and political citizenship
Alternative and non-modern spatialities, temporalities, cartographies 
and chronologies

Please send paper and panel proposals to Julie Cupples 
([log in to unmask]) using the application form.

The application form can be found here:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/global-development/news-events/events-section/decolonizing-the-academy

Deadline for submission: 9 December 2015

For further information about these events, please contact Julie Cupples 
([log in to unmask])

-- 
Julie Cupples
Reader in Human Geography
Co-director, Global Development Academy
Institute of Geography
School of Geosciences
University of Edinburgh
Drummond Street
Edinburgh EH8 9XP
Phone: 	+44 (0) 131 651 4315
FAX: 	+44 (0) 131 650 2524
Email: 	[log in to unmask]
http://juliecupples.wordpress.com/
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/global-development
@juliecupples79




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