Decolonising Social Research Seminar Series: Decolonising Theory

Speakers: Foluke Adebisi, Mark Jackson and Arathi Sriprakash (all University of Bristol) When it comes to conceptualising a research problem, we often turn to literature and pre-existing theoretical frameworks. The social sciences grew up alongside the European project of world domination and competition through colonisation. Hence, much of the established canon of disciplinary knowledge has contributed to the imperial project of colonisation and contemporary relations of oppression. On the other hand, scholarship resisting and opposing colonisation also has a long and deep history including scholars identifying with marginalised and oppressed racial groups in the Global North and scholars form the global South. This session will examine what it could mean when we talk about decolonising theory. Does it mean different things in different disciplines? How do we reconcile the co-optation of decolonising within the agenda of HE with our various understandings of decolonial thought? What questions of praxis arise when we apply decolonial thought to theorising? Click here to sign up!