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Gurminda Bambra, key author for this week's reading, has compiled a useful open educational resource featuring global concepts, thinkers and topics with essential readings highlighted throughout. The website content is also made available with a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. https://globalsocialtheory.org/

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Changing the stories we have inherited from colonialism | Priyamvada Gopal

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'British Empire is still being whitewashed by the school curriculum – historian on why this must change.'

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'British Empire is still being whitewashed by the school curriculum – historian on why this must change.'

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Do you agree? Why might it be important that UK school pupils learn multiple perspectives on the history of the British Empire?

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Jeremy Corbyn has recently proposed that British school children should be taught about the history of the realities of British imperialism and colonialism. This would include the history of people of colour as components of, and contributors to, the British nation-state - rather than simply as enslaved victims of it. As Corbyn rightly noted: "Black history is British history" - and hence its study should be part of the national curriculum, not segregated in a single month each year.

This is a welcome proposal because, as an academic who teaches modules on South Asian, imperial, colonial and global history, I face an uphill struggle at the start of each new academic year. Many of the undergraduates who greet me know virtually nothing about any of the subjects I teach.

These are students who are educated through a school history curriculum that focuses almost entirely on English political and religious history - with bits of 20th-century European history thrown in. These are the bits with figures who can easily be cast as "evil" - Hitler or Stalin, for example. The students who I encounter know very little about Britain's past, let alone Britain's connections with the wider world or the history of the world outside Europe.

They therefore know practically nothing about empire and its legacies - including in Britain. The histories they have studied and texts they have read were virtually all about or by white men, so they also know nothing about the history of women or the histories of people of colour, either. This includes those who have played important roles in shaping Britain's past.

'Black history is British history'

Corbyn's proposals would not only begin to redress the phenomenal gulf between academic history and the English school curriculum. They would also help students to see people of colour as historical agents. The proposals may also help to challenge the exclusivist and essentialist ways in which students are taught to view both Britain and the wider world.

These proposals, however, have been met with the type of outrage many have come to expect from white, middle-aged, right-wing conservatives. According to the "bullish" Brexiteer and Conservative MP Tom Loughton, Corbyn's proposals demonstrated he was "ashamed" of his own country - and was more interested in "talking down" Britain rather than celebrating "the immense amount of good we have done in the world over many centuries".

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"Bad things", according to Loughton, undoubtedly happened in the name of empire, but Britain should be proud of its many legacies - including its role in abolishing the global slave trade. Not to be outdone, the equally bullish Brexiteer Jacob Rees Mogg trotted out Britain's abolition of the slave trade on Nick Ferrari's LBC show. He also noted that while there were "blots" on Britain's colonial history it had some "good bits" that were "really wonderful".

Denial about empire

Such responses demonstrate a profound ignorance about British imperial and colonial history, particularly about the impact of empire on not only the colonised but also the colonisers as well. But it is a state of denial about empire that makes views like those of Loughton and Rees Mogg possible. To say that empire had "good bits" is to deny what empire entailed - namely the conquest, subjugation and exploitation of millions of people.

It is to erase the tremendous structural and symbolic violence that empire unleashed. To praise Britain's role in abolishing the slave trade is only possible if we deny the various forms of economic, political, social and cultural violence that enabled the perpetuation of such a trade - in Britain and its empire - as well as the ongoing legacies of such forms of violence. To view empire as having "good" and "bad" bits also entails viewing the past in simplistic terms. And to claim students should only study the "good bits" of the past also begs the question: whose "good bits", exactly?

It also assumes that to teach schoolchildren the "bad" bits is to make them ashamed of their country's past. Yet as Germany has demonstrated, teaching children to interrogate difficult histories does not make them hate their country. It can serve, instead, to promote an "anti-nationalist nationalism", in which the very tenets of nationalist thinking - including viewing the past in nationalistic terms - are critiqued.

As my own students have told me, being able to interrogate difficult histories such as the history of empire, to explore the myriad connections between people in different parts of the planet, or to study the writings of Indian thinkers and actors has given them a much better understanding of themselves and their place in the world. Or, as one student put it, it has enabled them to "grow as a person". And that, surely, is what education is supposed to do.

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British Empire is still being whitewashed by the school curriculum - historian on why this must change

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Jeremy Corbyn has recently proposed that British school children should be taught about the history of the realities of British imperialism and colonialism. This would include the history of people of colour as components of, and contributors to, the British nation-state - rather than simply as enslaved victims of it.

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In Week 7 seminar students brought up the example of Brazil's state transformation under President Bolsonaro - how might we understand the events that led up to this in terms of 'political revolution' and/or 'coercive state apparatus'?

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Goldsmiths

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As part of the Library's strategy, we will engage with the aims of LTAS commitment to 'Liberate our degrees'.

We will work to diversify our collections, to de-centre Whiteness, to challenge non-inclusive structures in knowledge management and their impact on library collections, users, and services

We will take an intersectional approach to our liberation work to encompass the many parts of a person's identity

We are doing this work to decolonise and diversify our collections as part of an effort to ensure the library collections speak to all voices, particularly those that are traditionally underrepresented in curricula and on reading lists.

We want to work in a collaborative way with our users in identifying the subject areas that do not address their experiences and identities, and where the canon excludes them. Please see below about how you can make suggestions for purchase.

How we are doing this

We are working alongside Goldsmiths Students' Union to ensure access, inclusion, and robust learning support for all our students.

Purchasing new books and resources as part of 'Liberate our degrees'

Students and staff can make new book suggestions as part of 'Liberate our degrees'.

If you would like to suggest an item for purchase, use the item request form and select 'Yes' for the 'Liberate our degrees' initiative question.

You can also make suggestions by emailing: acquisitions (@gold.ac.uk), with the Subject line: Liberate.

All suggestions bought will be discoverable as a collection in Library Search.

You can view all the books and resources for Goldsmiths 'Liberate our Degree' by searching for the keyword 'liberatemydegree' on Library Search.

Decolonising the curriculum

Collaborating with academic departments and students to identify marginalised groups not represented in the curriculum, and reflect those groups in the acquisition of learning and teaching resources.

Diversifying Reading Lists

Collaborating with teaching staff to create decolonised and inclusive Reading Lists to better represent the identities and experiences of our student body.

Examples created by the library include:

Resistance Researching Workshops

We offer a series of workshops designed to help students think more critically about how we find and why we use information from a social justice perspective. Come along to try out some practical techniques to expand your research horizons and learn about 'Liberate our Library'.

Examples include:

Resistance Researching: A Critical Approach to Information Gathering - This workshop aims to empower participants to understand why all the books they need aren't shelved in one place in the library, to critically assess bias in library systems, and to proactively seek multiple perspectives in information gathering

Resistance Researching: Inclusive Citation - This workshop aims to enable participants to understand that academic references and citations have a purpose (and a power) beyond plagiarism, and provide practical tips on how to resist privileging dominant voices by engaging in a practice of inclusive citation

See the Academic Support page for further details.

Liberate! Zines Collection

The Liberate! Zines Collection is an ongoing project and a dedicated space for recognising the intersectionality of struggles for black, POC (People of Colour), LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex and Asexual), disabled, women and otherwise institutionally oppressed groups through listening and including the voices of the most marginalised. The zines collection at Goldsmiths will support work around decolonising the curriculum. You can make suggestions for purchase by filling in the form below or emailing: acquisitions (@gold.ac.uk), with the Subject line: Liberate! zines.

Racial Justice work

We are contributing to Goldsmiths' racial justice work with staff members on the Racial Justice Strategic Board, Anti-racism training group, and the Advance HE Race Equality Charter Self-assessment team (REC SAT).

Events

We are collaborating with Goldsmiths Students' Union on exhibitions and events using the Library space.

Work with us

We want to work with you, so if there are other ways you'd like us to contribute to the Liberation agenda, please contact library (@gold.ac.uk).

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As part of the Library's strategy, we will engage with the aims of LTAS commitment to 'Liberate our degrees'.

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The presidential election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil

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The presidential election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil

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Brazil has a fascist presidential frontrunner. Here are 20 of Jair Bolsonaro's most racist and reactionary statements.

"Pinochet should have killed more people." Veja, December 2, 1998. "I have five children. Four were boys, on the fifth I got weak and had a daughter." Speech at the Clube Hebraica, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017. "Let's shoot all the PT members here in Acre [a Brazilian state]." Campaign event on September 1, 2018. [...]

"Pinochet should have killed more people." Veja, December 2, 1998. "I have five children. Four were boys, on the fifth I got weak and had a daughter." Speech at the Clube Hebraica, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017. "Let's shoot all the PT members here in Acre [a Brazilian state]." Campaign event on September 1, 2018. [...]

"Pinochet should have killed more people." Veja, December 2, 1998. "I have five children. Four were boys, on the fifth I got weak and had a daughter." Speech at the Clube Hebraica, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017. "Let's shoot all the PT members here in Acre [a Brazilian state]." Campaign event on September 1, 2018. [...]

1. "Pinochet should have killed more people." Veja, December 2, 1998.

2. "I have five children. Four were boys, on the fifth I got weak and had a daughter." Speech at the Clube Hebraica, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017.

3. "Let's shoot all the PT members here in Acre [a Brazilian state]." Campaign event on September 1, 2018.

4. "My advice and I do it: I cheat on my taxes as much as possible. If I don't need to pay anything, I don't pay." Programa Câmera Aberta, Band RJ, May 23, 1999.

5. "There is not the least doubt! I would organize a coup on the same day, the same day!" Bolsonaro in response to the question of what he would do with the National Congress if elected president. Programa Câmera Aberta, Band RJ, May 23, 1999.

6. "If your son begins to act like this, sort of gay, he deserves a smack and he'll change his behavior." TV Câmara, October 17, 2010.

7. "I'm favorable to torture and you know this." Programa Câmera Aberta, Band RJ, May 23, 1999.

8. "I don't run this risk since my sons were very well educated and haven't lived in environments like yours, lamentably." In response to a question by a black woman reporter who asked what he would do if one of his sons dated a black woman. Programa CQC, Band TV, March 29, 2011.

9. "Through the vote you will not change anything in this country, right? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! You will only change, unfortunately, on the day when we begin a civil war here inside. And doing the job that the Military Regime didn't do: killing thirty thousand! Beginning with FHC [Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president at the time]! ... If some innocents die, alright; in every war innocent people die. I would even be happy if I died as long as thirty thousand others died together with me." Programa Câmera Aberta, Band RJ, May 23, 1999.

10. "The situation of the country would be better today if the dictatorship had killed more people." Folha de São Paulo, June 30, 1999.

11. "What historic debt do we have with blacks? I never enslaved them. The Portuguese never set foot in Africa. The blacks were delivered by blacks." Programa Roda Viva, July 30, 2018.

12. "I never beat my ex-wife. But I thought of shooting her various times." Revista IstoÉ, February 14, 2000.

13. "Who never spanked a child on the bum and then had regrets? It happens." On executions authorized by ex-President Geisel during the military dictatorship. Radio Super Noticia, May 11, 2018.

14. "I went to a quilombola [maroon settlement] in El Dourado Paulista. Look, the lightest African descendant there weighed 100 kg. They don't do anything. They don't even serve to reproduce." Speech at the Clube Hebraica, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017.

15. "God above everything. There is no such thing as this secular state. The state is Christian and the minority will have to change, if they can. The minorities will have to adapt to the position of the majority." Speech at the Aeroporto João Suassuna, Campina Grande, February 8, 2017.

16. "I'm not going to combat or discriminate, but if I see two men kissing on the street, I'm going to hit them." Folha de São Paulo, May 19, 2002.

17. "I would never rape you because you don't deserve it." Jair Bolsonaro to Federal Deputy, Maria do Rosário, November 2003.

18. "And mistresses? Are they prohibited too?" Commenting on a law that would ban nepotism in government jobs. Folha de São Paulo, April 14, 2005.

19. "The big mistake was to torture and not kill. Fuck them! Fuck them!" Commenting on the possibility of a revision in the Amnesty Law which would lead to the punishment of torturers during the military dictatorship. August 7, 2008.

20. "I would be unable to love a gay son. I won't be a hypocrite here: I would prefer that my son die in an accident rather than appear with a [gay] moustache. For me, he would be dead." Playboy, 2011.

End Mark

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Sean Purdy teaches the history of workers' and social movements at the University of São Paulo and is an activist in the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL).

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Brazil has a fascist presidential frontrunner. Here are 20 of Jair Bolsonaro's most racist and reactionary statements. "Pinochet should have killed more people." Veja, December 2, 1998. "I have five children. Four were boys, on the fifth I got weak and had a daughter." Speech at the Clube Hebraica, Rio de Janeiro, April 3, 2017.

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'How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war'

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'How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war'

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By Pankaj Mishra (2018)

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How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war

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The long read: There is a notion that the Great War was a shocking rupture in civilisation that tore a peaceful world apart. But for millions who had long been living under imperialist rule, terror and degradation were not new

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In a post-Brexit world, how should we treat the legacy of the British Empire?

Join us for an uncensored look at Britain’s colonial past, as we question why so much of history stays hidden, and whether the truth of these histories should lead to shame, reflection and reparations – or instil pride and inspiration.

This is an evening of debate not to be missed, with activist & MC Lowkey, journalist David Goodhart, DrGurminder Bhambra, journalist Remi Adekoya and chaired by writer Zahra Dalilah.

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BRITAIN'S PRIVATE SHAME

In a post-Brexit world, how should we treat the legacy of the British Empire?
Join us for an uncensored look at Britain's colonial past, as we question why so much of history stays hidden, and whether the truth of these histories should lead to shame, reflection and reparations - or instil pride and inspiration.

This is an evening of debate not to be missed, with activist & MC Lowkey, journalist David Goodhart, Dr Gurminder Bhambra, journalist Remi Adekoya and chaired by writer Zahra Dalilah.

Runnymede is the UK's leading independent race equality think tank. They generate intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, leading debate, and policy engagement.

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BRITAIN'S PRIVATE SHAME In a post-Brexit world, how should we treat the legacy of the British Empire? Join us for an uncensored look at Britain's colonial past, as we question why so much of history stays hidden, and whether the truth of these histories should lead to shame, reflection and reparations - or instil pride and inspiration.

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Diversifying Our Curriculum at Goldsmiths

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Diversifying Our Curriculum at Goldsmiths

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Film by Goldsmiths Student Union

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(2018) Edited by Gurminder K. Bhambra, Dalia Gebrial, Kerem Nişancıoğlu

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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. The battle cry '#RhodesMustFall' sparked an international movement calling for the decolonisation of the world's universities.

Today, as this movement grows, how will it 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 home of the coloniser, in the heart of the establishment. Subverting curricula, enforcing diversity, and destroying old boundaries, this is a radical call for a new era of education.

Offering resources for students and academics to challenge and resist coloniality inside and outside the classroom, Decolonising the University provides the tools for radical pedagogical, disciplinary and institutional change.

This book is available to download through the Open Access programme.

Gurminder K. Bhambra is Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. She is the author of Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination (Palgrave, 2007) and Connected Sociologies (Bloomsbury, 2014), and the co-editor of Decolonising the University (Pluto, 2018).

Dalia Gebrial is the editor of a special issue of the Historical Materialism journal on identity politics and co-editor of Decolonising the University (Pluto, 2017).

Kerem Nişancıoğlu is a Lecturer in International Relations at SOAS, University of London. He is the co-author of How the West Came to Rule (Pluto, 2015), and co-editor of Decolonising the University (Pluto, 2018). He also blogs at The Disorder of Things.

- Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching - Priyamvada Gopal, Reader in Anglophone and Related Literatures, University of Cambridge - Alana Lentin, Western Sydney University

1. Introduction: Decolonising the University? - Gurminder K. Bhambra, Dalia Gebrial and Kerem Nişancıoğlu
PART I - CONTEXTS: HISTORICAL AND DISCIPLINARY
2. Rhodes Must Fall: Oxford and Movements for Change - Dalia Gebrial
3. Race and the Neoliberal University: Lessons from the Public University - John Holmwood
4. Black/Academia - Robbie Shilliam
5. Decolonising Philosophy - Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Rafael Vizcaíno, Jasmine Wallace and Jeong Eun Annabel We
PART II - INSTITUTIONAL INITIATIVES
6. Asylum University: Re-situating Knowledge-exchange along Cross-border Positionalities - Kolar Aparna and Olivier Kramsch
7. Diversity or Decolonisation? Researching Diversity at the University of Amsterdam - Rosalba Icaza and Rolando Vázquez
8. The Challenge for Black Studies in the Neoliberal University - Kehinde Andrews
9. Open Initiatives for Decolonising the Curriculum - Pat Lockley
PART III - DECOLONIAL REFLECTIONS
10. Meschachakanis, a Coyote Narrative: Decolonising Higher Education - Shauneen Pete
11. Decolonising Education: A Pedagogic Intervention - Carol Azumah Dennis
12. Internationalisation and Interdisciplinarity: Sharing acrossBoundaries? - Angela Last
13. Understanding Eurocentrism as a Structural Problem of Undone Science - William Jamal Richardson
Notes on Contributors
Index

Published by Pluto Press in Aug 2018

Paperback ISBN: 9780745338200

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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 campu...

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"Decolonising the curriculum: it's in the detail, not just in the definition"

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"Decolonising the curriculum: it's in the detail, not just in the definition"

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by Kasturi Behari-Leak et al. 2017

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The "de-" in decolonisation is a chance to break away from colonial ways of doing things. Shutterstock

In the two years since student protests kicked off at South Africa's universities, people have become increasingly interested in what decolonisation means. This stems from students' calls for university curricula to be decolonised. People want a precise definition. But it's not that simple.

"Decolonisation" is a nuanced, layered concept. Its meaning cannot be unlocked using a scientific formula, recipes or definitions. An understanding of the process of "decolonisation" lies more in its detail than its definition.

For instance, little attention has been paid to how universities still reproduce colonial methodologies and practices that may not be relevant in South African universities today.

Committee meetings are one example of an inherited practice. A meeting is a gathering of a group of people to make decisions. Most groups use some form of western parliamentary procedure for their meetings. "Parliamentary procedure" is a set of rules for meetings which ensures that the traditional principles of equality, harmony and efficiency are kept. Robert's Rules of Order, the best-known description of standard parliamentary procedure, is used by many different organisations as their rule book for conducting effective meetings.

The thought of a two-hour committee meeting - a staple of university life - fills many academics with dread. They know what will happen: they'll sit and listen passively, contributing only when asked to; watching others dominate the space and push their own agendas. They'll glare at anyone who dares to object or raise a point. Everyone just wants to escape.

So why do things continue this way and, some may ask, why does it matter?

There are many similarities between how students experience colonial classroom practices and how these manifest in university meeting practices. In both scenarios those who can speak are those who already have the currency to do so. Others, concerned about how their accents, use of language and lived experiences will be judged, remain silent and left out.

There are other ways to conduct meetings and present lectures; many are already part of South Africa's cultural heritage. Could adopting, adapting or even just understanding more about these help universities to release colonialism's grip on their practices?

Rethinking traditional practices

In African settings, different "meeting" practices are followed. For example in traditional historic African societies, "meetings" were gatherings to make decisions and to discuss issues that affected the community.

The traditional , for example, has been used for centuries for village assemblies and village leaders' meetings. There's also the , historically an important conference held by the principal men of a particular community or with representatives of other communities; and the , a forum for policy discussion.

There are no doubt many more variations from a wider range of perspectives that could provide different "meeting" approaches.

The lekgotla, indaba and imbizo have featured in meetings and conferences for some years now. But have these cultural practices been appropriated in name only? Do people really engage with what it means to be part of such a gathering?

Ideally, by bringing individuals into a collective space, organisers should be inviting different knowledge and thought perspectives. Changing the way that "meetings" are convened and conducted is a chance to canvass wisdom and experience.

During a recent executive meeting of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA), we decided to put this thinking to the test. Our approach was informed by some scholars' writing about decolonisation as a " de-linking " gesture.

The "de-" in decolonisation, they argue, is an invitation to be active in making a "gesture" that breaks with colonial ways of doing things - especially those that continue to alienate, marginalise and silence people and their experience.

We attempted to do things differently, and the ways of interacting that emerged drew on members' background, context, disposition and theories of change in meaningful ways. The feedback from members showed that individuals were able to find their voices, contribute meaningfully to discussions and felt valued through the personal and professional narratives and expertise they brought in.

A different approach

The agenda was designed to include time for members to introduce themselves, share their vision and connect with each other in the group. They did this by dialogue and participatory techniques such as reflective exercises and drawings. They explained who they were, where they were located in higher education, and also reflected on their journeys into higher education as well as their reasons for being on the executive team.

This was an important break from traditional meeting procedure, where the chairperson makes the introductions and effectively speaks for everyone. Our approach was a chance for people to speak for themselves and to bring their authentic selves, contexts and backgrounds into the room.

The traditional academic-support staff divide in universities relegates administrative work to those who are lower on the academic hierarchy. Menial tasks are ascribed to secretaries and administrative support. Cognitive labour is carried out mainly by academics. By bringing people into the "meeting" space on more equal terms, irrespective of their assigned roles - chair, secretary, treasurer - we started to "populate" the room in a different way that validated and acknowledged the team's varied expertise and energies.

The question of agency in any organisation is critical. The power and ability to make decisions cannot rest with leadership alone. By empowering people in meeting spaces you enable them to exercise their agency to ask more questions, offer more suggestions and contribute more meaningfully to decisions.

"Powerful knowledges"

Those who oppose decolonisation might argue that you cannot just throw out all the current ways of being and behaving; that not all structures or practices are harmful.

But by exercising agency in this collaborative and responsive way, meetings can be seen as a spiral, not a linear process. People in academia should constantly move backwards and forward in their quest to find a solution. While striving for better ways to understand South African higher education today, those in the sector should look back and assess which ideas are still relevant and which should be done away with.

If higher education is to re-centre itself, academics and other staff must be invited to engage with the "powerful knowledges" they bring in. They have a wealth of cultural resources that the academy must value. How can academics reconceptualise and reframe what they know and do in their own fields - and then bring these visions into meetings and similar spaces?

The changed meeting procedure we've described here may offer some answers to these hard questions. It was a way to learn about others' narratives, disciplines and practices in much more nuanced, gentle, respectful, imaginative ways. It created opportunities for dialogue characterised by mutual vulnerability that we hope can be sustained and valued in future.

Vulnerability, authenticity and respect - as well as imagination - are so vital in the decolonisation debate to ensure we really sink our teeth into the detail rather than bellowing at each other only about definitions.

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Decolonising the curriculum: it's in the detail, not just in the definition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the two years since student protests kicked off at South Africa's universities, people have become increasingly interested in what decolonisation means. This stems from students' calls for university curricula to be decolonised. People want a precise definition. But it's not that simple. "Decolonisation" is a nuanced, layered concept.

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Bhambra, G. K. (2015). On the Haitian Revolution and the Society of Equals. Theory, Culture & Society, 32(7–8), 267–274.

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The Haitian Revolution is not only one of the most important foundational moments in the emergence of the modern world, but also one of the most neglected within the social scientific literature. The following posts reflect on its omission from a new intellectual history of 'equality' and discuss how understandings of equality might be different if we took the Haitian Revolution seriously.

Dubois, L (2000) La République Métissée: Citizenship, colonialism, and the borders of French history. Cultural Studies 14(1): 15-34. Google Scholar

Fischer, S (2004) Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, Durham: Duke University Press. Google Scholar

Geggus, DP (1989) Racial equality, slavery, and colonial secession during the Constituent Assembly. American Historical Review 94(5): 1290-1308. Google Scholar

James, CLR (1989 [1963, 1938]) The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 2nd edn. New York: Vintage Books. Google Scholar

Rosanvallon, P (2013) The Society of Equals, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar

Sala-Molins, L (2006) Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenment, trans. and intro. Conteh-Morgan J, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar

Stovall, T (2006) Race and the making of the nation: Blacks in modern France. In: Gomez, MA (ed.) Diasporic Africa: A Reader, New York: New York University Press, pp. 200-218. Google Scholar

Trouillot, M-R (1995) Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Boston: Beacon Press. Google Scholar

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On the Haitian Revolution and the Society of Equals

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The Haitian Revolution is not only one of the most important foundational moments in the emergence of the modern world, but also one of the most neglected within the social scientific literature. The following posts reflect on its omission from a new intellectual history of 'equality' and discuss how understandings of equality might be different if we took the Haitian Revolution seriously.

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How can the study of revolutions contribute to an understanding of historical change?

Are explanations of change that focus on revolutionary events incompatible with explanations of change that focus on slow, long-term processes? Can the two types of explanation be combined?

What are the main differences between social and political revolutions?

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For what reasons do revolutions occur?

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An introduction to C L R James's The Black Jacobins

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An introduction to C L R James's The Black Jacobins

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British Library introductory study guide by Rachel Douglas

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An introduction to C L R James's The Black Jacobins

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Rachel Douglas traces the evolution of C L R James's ground breaking work on the Haitian Revolution, which developed in the form of articles, a published history and stage plays.

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'Decolonising the curriculum: what’s all the fuss about?'

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'Decolonising the curriculum: what’s all the fuss about?'

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by Dr Sabarathnam

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You may have recently read false news reports that SOAS students have called for the removal of white philosophers such as Plato and Kant from their reading lists. It bears repeating that these reports are untrue - they are calling for a greater representation of non-European thinkers, as well as better historical awareness of the contexts in which scholarly knowledge has been produced. This is part of a wider student campaign to 'decolonise the university ', which includes discussions around the curriculum and teaching, support and outcomes for BME students, terms and conditions for campus workers and other aspects of university life.

Why would anyone want to 'decolonise the curriculum', and what does this mean for academic study? Like the word 'democracy', 'decolonisation' can mean different things. Below, I offer three interpretations of what it means to 'decolonise the curriculum' and how they can make our universities better places.

First, 'decolonising the curriculum' asks us to look at our shared assumptions about how the world is. It is accepted in many disciplines that in the past, assumptions regarding racial and civilizational hierarchy informed a lot of thinking about how the world worked, what was worth studying in it and how it should be studied. Such assumptions also informed and justified the expansion of colonial rule in Asia, Africa and the Middle East until the mid-twentieth century.

Whilst many of these assumptions have been challenged with the dismantling of colonial rule, many persist in public discourse as well as academic study. For example, whilst many may not call societies 'backward' explicitly today, many theories and practices of development depend on this very assumption. Is this justified? What else does this assume? One interpretation of 'decolonising the curriculum' means interrogating such assumptions, models and frameworks for these specific biases. We have been doing this for a long time in different fields, but understanding it as 'decolonising the curriculum' connects it to this wider sphere of activity.

Second, 'decolonising the curriculum' asks the crucial questions about the relationship between the location and identity of the writer, what they write and how they write about it. Would we find it acceptable if the writings and teachings on the situation of women and gender relations were done almost exclusively by men? How would this influence the kinds of perspectives presented? Similarly, is it acceptable if writings and teachings about international regions or global affairs are done almost exclusively by writers from or based within the West? How does this influence our understanding? If we think that there is some kind of a relationship between position and perspective on an issue, and we want to broaden our understanding through engaging with more perspectives, we need to diversify the sources we engage in our scholarship. Again, this is something that has been underway for some time within SOAS and beyond it - our teaching on World Philosophies and World Englishes are good examples of these trends. Combined with the previous point, there is a powerful case for why a diversified curriculum enables more knowledge and more intellectual rigour.

Third, 'decolonising the curriculum' asks us to think about the implications of a more diverse student body in terms of pedagogy and achievement. Because we live in a society marked by structural inequalities of different kinds, as educators we must work hard to give our students equal opportunities to flourish and succeed. This includes defining and dealing with racism as it is woven into different aspects of university life. When BME students report a sense of alienation from particular topics of study or dynamics in the classroom, we have a duty to address this through dialogue amongst teachers and students.

Although at SOAS our BME attainment rates are significantly better than the UK average, racialized attainment gaps anywhere are not an acceptable part of higher education. Dealing with such gaps does not entail compromising academic standards, abandoning academic freedom or avoiding controversial topics, as much of the coverage would have you believe. Nor does it involve taking everything that is said at face value. Rather, it involves cultivating an environment in which all of us can have an honest, respectful and rigorous discussion about what is happening, how it can be set right and what that entails. In doing so, we need to apply precisely the kind of skills that we seek to cultivate in universities - intellectual clarity, evidence, courage, openness to new ideas - and a commitment to an education system that works for all.

'Decolonising the curriculum' can mean many things and is not something that happens overnight; it requires a sustained and serious commitment within the institution and across the sector. We might also remind ourselves that contestations over the politics of knowledge are as old as universities themselves, and in this sense the present student campaign is itself a manifestation of that fusty old academic tradition - to challenge received wisdom, to ask questions about society and to generate the insight needed to change the world.

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Decolonising the curriculum: what's all the fuss about?

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Why would anyone want to 'decolonise the curriculum', and what does this mean for academic study? Like the word 'democracy', 'decolonisation' can mean different things. Here I offer three interpretations of what it means to 'decolonise the curriculum' and how they can make our universities better places.

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Are SOAS students right to ‘decolonise’ their minds from western philosophers?

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Are SOAS students right to ‘decolonise’ their minds from western philosophers?

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by Kenan Malik (2017)

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"They Kant be serious!", spluttered the Daily Mail headline in its most McEnroe-ish tone. "PC students demand white philosophers including Plato and Descartes be dropped from university syllabus". "Great thinkers too male and pale, students declare", trumpeted the Times. The Telegraph, too, was outraged: "They are said to be the founding fathers of western philosophy, whose ideas underpin civilised society. But students at a prestigious London university are demanding that figures such as Plato, Descartes and Immanuel Kant should be largely dropped from the curriculum because they are white."

Whiteness is not a useful category when talking of philosophy. When people speak, they speak ideas, not identity.

The prestigious London University was the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas). It hit the headlines last month when journalists discovered that students, backed by many of their lecturers, have set up a campaign to " Decolonise Our Minds" by transforming the curriculum. So shocking did the idea seem of a British university refusing to teach Plato, Locke or Kant that the story was picked up by newspapers across the globe. BBC2's Newsnight debated whether "universities should eschew western philosophers". This predictably generated more outraged headlines when one of the guests, sociologist Kehinde Andrews, denounced Soas as a "white institution" and the Enlightenment as "racist".

For academics and students at Soas, the press coverage itself is the cause of outrage. "When the report came out that we were trying to take white men off the table, it was just bewildering because we had no intention of doing that," says Sian Hawthorne, a convenor of the undergraduate course World Philosophies, the only philosophy degree that Soas provides. "Our courses are intimately engaged with European thought."

"We're not trying to exclude European thinkers," says a second-year doctoral student, and a member of the Decolonising Our Minds group. "We're trying to desacralise European thinkers, stopping them from being treated as unquestionable. What we are doing is quite reasonable."

So what is the truth behind the headlines? Will philosophy students at Soas really not be taught Aristotle and Kant? Do the students and academics have a point that the curriculum is "too white"? And what should be the place of European philosophy, and European philosophers, in an age of globalisation and of a shifting power balance from west to east?

On my course in political theory we discussed 26 thinkers. Just two were non-European

I went to Soas to talk to students and academics. "That's the one thing," one student told me, "that no journalist has so far done."

The School of Oriental and African Studies was founded in 1916 "to secure the running of the British Empire", as historian Ian Brown puts it in his history of the institution. Its aim was to provide "instruction to colonial administrators, commercial managers, and military officers, but also to missionaries, doctors and teachers". Soas taught them the local languages as well as providing "an authoritative introduction to the customs, religions, laws of the people whom they were to govern".

Today, of the more than 6,000 students at Soas, almost half come from abroad, from 130 countries, and more than half are black or minority ethnic. Far from teaching students how to administer the empire, the school now helps develop independent, postcolonial societies. It sees its mission also as providing a critique of empire, and of its continuing legacies, a view that extends to the very top of Soas management. "Our minds are colonised, absolutely," says Deborah Johnston. Johnston is no student, nor even a mere academic, but the pro-director of learning and teaching, one of the most senior management figures at Soas. She continues: ''In most UK universities there has been a dominance of European thought. That's why we need to do work to decolonise the curriculum, and our minds."

For some, such views emanating from the very top of the institution entrench the belief that, in the words of an academic at another London college, "Soas is the most politicised of British universities". Others, however, see the problem not as one of an institution that is too politicised but as one that has not yet rid itself of the ghosts of empire. The curriculum, such critics claim, is still too rooted in a colonial view of the world, too stuffed with European thinkers, and too blind to African, Asian and Latin American thinkers.

Neelam Chhara is a third-year politics student at Soas, and the Student Union officer for "equality and liberation". "On my course in political theory," she says, "we discussed 26 thinkers. Just two were non-European - Frantz Fanon and Gandhi."

Such "frustrations with our curriculum" led students to set up the Decolonising Our Minds group. "We thought: why not show what an alternative curriculum could look like by hosting thinkers and academics that didn't centre on Europe like our curriculum was doing."

Meera Sabaratnam laughs when I tell her about Chhara's reading list. "That's two more non-Europeans than when I was taught political theory in my undergraduate PPE at Oxford." Sabaratnam is a lecturer in international relations at Soas. As an institution, it is, she says, much better than most universities. For instance, 39% of academic staff are of black or minority ethnic background - more than three times the figure for British universities overall. Nevertheless, she supports the Decolonising Our Minds campaign. "It is necessary to talk about colonial legacies and to look at how colonialism and racism impact the institution."

The argument for a more diverse curriculum seems reasonable, indeed unquestionable. After all, philosophers and thinkers come not just from Europe. There are great non-European intellectual traditions, myriad philosophical schools from China, India, Africa and the Muslim world, many of which have shaped European philosophy. Three years ago I wrote a book on the global history of ethics, called The Quest for a Moral Compass, which drew not just on European philosophers, but also on the works of Mo Tzu and Zhu Xi, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina, Anton Wilhelm Amo and Frantz Fanon, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Fung Yu Lan. All these different thinkers, I wanted to show, can be woven into a single but complex narrative through which we can rethink global history.

And yet, the debate about a "diverse curriculum" is not as straightforward as one might imagine. Few would contest the idea that European thinkers should not be on the curriculum simply because they are European. But of the major European philosophers that often dominate reading lists - such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, Kant, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Arendt or Sartre - how many are there simply because they are European rather than because their ideas merit study?

Sabaratnam acknowledges the problem. "Framing a course is primarily about content: what are the issues that need to be taught, and who can speak interestingly about those issues? How many European thinkers you include and the balance between European and non-European thinkers is an academic decision. If you want to understand political theory, you can't avoid engagement with Kant, Hegel and so on."

"But," she adds, "that can't be the be-all-and- end-all." There has, she insists, "to be a parallel debate about diversity and representation. There is value in having non-European thinkers and women on those reading lists."

If European thinkers should not be on reading lists simply because they are European, should non-Europeans be included just because they are non-European, solely for the value of increased diversity? Kwame Anthony Appiah, professor of philosophy and law at New York University, and last year's Reith lecturer on Radio 4, is sceptical. He teaches a course on global ethics, which includes European, Chinese, Arab and Indian thinkers. The key question for him, however, is not "Is the curriculum sufficiently diverse?" but "Is any particular thinker worth studying?"

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Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), the Martinique-born philosopher whose work is influential in the field of post-colonial studies.

"If they were uninteresting or unimportant," he observes, "it would not be much of a defence to say, 'They are Arab or Chinese and make the course more diverse.'"

The difficulties in thinking about a diverse curriculum can be seen in the founding statement of the Decolonising Our Minds campaign. It does not say: "We need to expand our curriculum to include philosophers from across the globe". Rather, it insists (under the heading "Decolonising Soas: Confronting the White Institution") that, "If white philosophers are required, then to teach their work from a critical viewpoint." This suggests that not having white philosophers should be the default position. This might not quite be "students demanding white philosophers be dropped from university syllabus", as the newspapers claimed, but it's not that far off.

"When you put it to me like that," says Sian Hawthorne, "yes, I think that is problematic. However, I take a more generous reading of that statement as saying whomever is taught, whoever's work is drawn on, it must always be dealt with critically. That is one of the first principles of a university education."

The students themselves told me that they had not realised what the statement actually said, and would change it.

Do we need to be particularly critical of white philosophers, I asked Hawthorne. Yes, she replied, because "whiteness has been engaged in perpetuating forms of oppression and marginalisation and exclusion". Does she think that all European philosophy is tainted by racism and colonialism? "Yes. There's plenty of evidence to demonstrate this."

But by insisting that the work of all white philosophers, from Aristotle to Arendt, from Socrates to Sartre, should be seen as tainted by racism, is she not confusing ideas and identity? Is she not falling into the same trap as racists, suggesting that because one possesses a particular identity, so one's ideas are necessari

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Are Soas students right to 'decolonise' their minds from western philosophers?

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"They Kant be serious!", spluttered the Daily Mail headline in its most McEnroe-ish tone. "PC students demand white philosophers including Plato and Descartes be dropped from university syllabus". "Great thinkers too male and pale, students declare", trumpeted the Times. The Telegraph, too, was outraged: "They are said to be the founding fathers of western philosophy, whose ideas underpin civilised society.

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'Decolonising Social Thought and Contemporary Social Discourse: the diversification and globalisation of sociology'

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'Decolonising Social Thought and Contemporary Social Discourse: the diversification and globalisation of sociology'

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by Ashley Masing

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Do movements dedicated to decolonising sociology need to press further? Ashley Masing explores what a fully decolonised sociology could look like.
In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx once wrote that our political, legal, and educational systems were built on the foundations of existing structures which have scaffolded our society - and our colonial past is no exception to such influence. Movements dedicated to decolonising sociology curricula in many British institutions have taken place, having managed to, in most cases, affect positive change in the way the discipline is taught. Non-white social theorists such as W.E.B Du Bois and Edward Said are now becoming featured on many Social Theory syllabi, providing students with a racialised, post-colonial perspective on the complexities of modern Western society. Yet, I must digress; despite inclusions of Non-white thinkers and compulsory modules on issues pertaining to ethnic minority experiences, the road to the complete decolonisation of the discipline is only beginning to be traversed. Sociology itself needs to globalise for it to fully decolonise. It needs to be uprooted from a primarily Western context for it to truly be a complete analysis of human society. We must diversify the theoretical foundations of sociology, drawing schools of thought from thinkers around the globe, not just Europe and America. We need to re-situate discourses of contemporary social issues outside of the western sphere, analysing non-western societies, not purely for the sake of sparking conversations of colonialism. And finally, sociology must undergo an epistemological transformation; utilising knowledge produced by its sister disciplines of anthropology and geography to paint a wider picture of the modern, social world.

When universities have been presented with the notion that their curricula are "too white, too male," the appropriate responses have been to incorporate a woman and/or a thinker of colour into their teachings. And whilst this is a step in the right direction, oftentimes these thinkers are operating within a relationship to a Western context; Du Bois and Said are popular choices of theorists that are alternative to an existing, white curriculum but both of their writings focused on: 1) race and race relations within America, 2) the relationship between the West and the wider world. Although their philosophies have introduced an examination of colonial structures, we need to disconnect from the idea that a 'non-white/western' perspective must only ever be in the context of colonial critique. Take the concept of social solidarity for example; when a sociology student is first introduced to this phrase, it is within the writings of Durkheim and his Division of Labour (1993), and although it is true that Durkheim has conceptualised these ideas in his book, the first theorist to coin such notions of solidarity was the Tunisian philosopher Ibn Khaldun in the Muqaddimah (2015), where he first introduces solidarity as asabiyyah. Many sociology curricula have tended to neglect Khaldun's thinking despite it being foundational to the discipline and the way we think about society - and we can stand to learn a lot about society from non-western philosophies. Thinkers such as Foucault and Marx have never self-identified as sociologists yet their theories have contributed so much to sociological thought. Confucius' political philosophies of government and social harmony (Parker, 2011), as an example, could help to potentially re-situate our social thinking outside of Eurocentric contexts. Though it is sensible and progressive to direct our attention to post-colonialism for the purposes of decolonising sociology, that is not the main goal of the non-White theorist, and their ideas extend beyond the conceptualisation of racialised thought.

And since the non-White theorist is not solely responsible for the theorising of race, neither is it the main goal of the non-western society to provide insight into the plight of the once colonised state. When thinking about a non-western society, they are often referenced in an analysis of colonialism; Du Bois (1903a) makes mention of the global nature of the colour-line and Said (1978) has spoken of the effects of Orientalism on the perception of the East, but that is where most mentions of non-western societies lay - in the conceptualisation of colonial effects. We need to remove ourselves from the association that the only value of looking into the issues pertaining to non-western states are only for the purposes of examining the effects of colonialism. We can gain so much sociological insight from analysing the contemporary social problems that underpin these societies without the intention of relating them back to colonial histories. For example, the construction of race relations in America and Europe differ greatly from the ethnic tensions within and between the South-East Asian states, and even the division of labour in accordance to gender lines in African societies, or even the ways patriarchy is manifested as machismo in Latin-American countries. Our discourse concerning modern society and its issues have been restricted to the polity, economy, and culture of Europe and America; this is not a true picture of the wider social world. Sociology needs to engage with the wider world in order for it to be a true science of society, as modern society and its contemporary issues are not restricted to any specific region.

Image Credit: (Jacques Caffin CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

So in order to globalise our social discourse outside of the western sphere, we need to follow in the examples set by our sister discipline of anthropology and to adopt the knowledge produced by geography. Anthropology has been characterised as the study of the 'other,' whereas sociology is the study of 'us' (that being the west); and so anthropology has had a colonial origin in which it observed non-western societies as a study of the 'exotic' (Cohen, Kennedy and Perrier, 2013), but gone are those days. Anthropology has since moved on from being a study of a perceived 'other,' its methodologies are now being utilised in the study of western peoples in an attempt to broaden our understanding of 'being human.' And the same needs to be done with sociology - no longer must we think of 'us' as the west, and start thinking of 'ourselves' as the wider world. We have to draw on the analyses of non-western modern societies, and we can do so by borrowing the knowledge produced by anthropologists. But geography too can give us a broader understanding of the social processes and issues that occur all over the world's surface from economic inequality, urban development, to environmental sustainability, that can add to the diversification of sociology's epistemological gaps. Sociology thus needs to adopt an interdisciplinary lens for it to truly globalize, and only then can the decolonising process truly begin to flourish.

So where do we go with sociology from here? It is now important to re-work the ways we approach the process of decolonising the discipline; it takes more than just introducing discourse on race and post-colonial perspectives, we need to start globalising the subject and consider societies outside of Europe not just for the sake of examining colonialism but for their epistemological value, and we need to think about diversifying the ways we think about the social world and the structures that lay their foundation. The approaches we use to develop the education of sociology speaks volumes of how it has been shaped by our relations with colonialism, and the modes in which we mold its evolution can then help to counteract this problem:

"Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men." - W.E.B Du Bois (1903b:58)

References
Cohen, R., Kennedy, P. and Perrier, M. (2013). Global sociology. 3rd ed. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Du Bois, W. (1903a). The souls of black folk.

Du Bois, W. (1903b). The Talented Tenth. New York: James Pott and Company.

Durkheim, E. (1933). The division of labour in society.

Ibn K̲aldūn, ʻ., Rosenthal, F., Dawood, N. and Lawrence, B. (2015). The Muqaddimah. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1848). The Communist manifesto.

Parker, J. (2011). Political Theory - Confucius on the proper role of government -. [online] Self Deprecate Political Humor. Available at: http://selfdeprecate.com/politics-articles/confucius-proper-role-government/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2018].

Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.
Ashley Masing is an undergraduate student in the Department.

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Decolonising Social Thought and Contemporary Social Discourse: the diversification and globalisation of sociology

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Do movements dedicated to decolonising sociology need to press further? Ashley Masing explores what a fully decolonised sociology could look like. In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx once wrote that our political, legal, and educational systems were built on the foundations of existing structures which have scaffolded our society - and our colonial past is no exception to such influence.

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One of several blog posts on the website for the academic journal Sociological Review in which academics post their reflections on the state of the discipline.

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Reposted with the kind permission of the British Sociological Association. First appeared online: 8 October 2018.
In 1970, CLR James, the Caribbean-born British historian and philosopher, was interviewed by the journal Black Scholar. James is perhaps most well-known for the publication of Black Jacobins, his account of the Haitian Revolution, and Beyond a Boundary, part autobiography, part a cultural and social history of cricket. Over the course of a wide-ranging interview, James was asked his views on Black Studies. A number of African American and Black Studies departments had been set up in the United States in the aftermath of the civil rights struggles and were part of the process of beginning to desegregate historically white institutions. James himself had just been appointed to the newly established Federal City College in Washington which had been set up to serve under-represented populations within higher education. It was a public institution with low tuition fees and was seen by many as a beacon for the possibilities of democratic education.

In responding to the questions about the significance and future of Black Studies in the United States, James argued that Black Studies ought not to be of concern only to Black people, but rather, should mean 'the intervention of a neglected area of studies that are essential to the understanding of ancient and modern society'. He went to say that it required 'a complete reorganization of the intellectual life and the historical outlook of the United States, and world civilization as a whole'. Further, he urged US universities not to think of Black Studies as simply a concession to the demands of Black students, but as an opening for their own intellectual development and understanding: 'here is an opportunity to extend the field of intellectual inquiry which they have neglected up to now, a chance to penetrate more into the fundamentals of Western civilization, which cannot be understood unless black studies is involved'.

So, in effect, James is not arguing for Black Studies as something apart from other disciplines, but rather calling for the knowledge that comes under Black Studies to be understood as constitutive of those disciplines; and that if those disciplines do not take this knowledge into account then they are deficient in their claims.

Sociology's orientation to history has generally been based around an implicit consensus on the emergence of modernity and the related 'rise of the West' thesis, which is constructed upon the privileging of Eurocentred histories. In recent years, however, and as a consequence of work that would broadly come under the remit of Black Studies, it is generally accepted that the historical record is different to that found within standard sociological understandings. While accounts of political modernity, for example, tend to focus on the US and French revolutions, it is becoming harder to ignore the significance of the Haitian Revolution - knowledge of which James himself did so much to bring into a wider public consciousness. As a consequence, it is also more difficult not to re-evaluate our understandings of the US and French revolutions in the light of the Haitian revolution and to reconsider their contributions to political modernity.

By taking into consideration accounts of events, processes, and thinkers beyond the West, sociology has begun to redress its previous neglect of those represented as 'other'. Despite such developments, however, more work is needed to investigate how taking into account the world-historical processes of dispossession, appropriation, elimination, and enslavement would further transform our disciplinary understandings. In addition to the significant work of recovery, what is needed is also to learn from what had previously been missing or erased.
Gurminder Bhambra is Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies at the University of Sussex. She works in the areas of historical sociology and contemporary social theory and has spoken on her research around the world.
Black History Month can be taken as an opportunity to redress the silences and omissions within our general curriculum by focusing on neglected figures, events, and processes, and then to use the knowledge gained to transform our existing ideas and conceptualizations. In the process, there is everything to gain. Just as feminists argued against the patriarchal structures of the university and, in doing so, invigorated the many disciplines with which they engaged, so too Black History month speaks to the need to decolonize the university for a similar reinvigoration. What is at stake is the very contribution that universities, and sociology, can make to the most pressing democratic issues of our time.

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In 1970, CLR James, the Caribbean-born British historian and philosopher, was interviewed by the journal Black Scholar. James is perhaps most well-known for the publication of Black Jacobins, his account of the Haitian Revolution, and Beyond a Boundary, part autobiography, part a cultural and social history of cricket.

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This blog post is republished with the permission of the author, Alana Lentin, from her blog, alanalentin.net. This discussion is a continuation of the discussion begun in the last post, Decolonizing Epistemologies: part 1.
Decolonial approach

The decolonial approach to the discussion of the relationship between modernity and coloniality and how this continues to impact upon global power relations represents an advance in thinking about the condition of coloniality in a way which may avoid some of the problems set out by Dirlik. It goes towards engaging deeply with the theme of interrelatedness which Bhambra suggests is fundamental for de-privileging western historicism and (re)writing more inclusive histories.

Decolonial thinking originates mainly with Latin American scholars such as Ramon Grosfoguel, Walter Mignolo, Enrique Dussel, Arturo Escobar, and Gloria Anzaldua. Decolonizing approaches are useful because they focus not only on theoretical deconstructions of the colonial structures which many critics argue continue to shape relationships between states and peoples across the globe, but also on the proposition of alternatives to them, sometimes through an appeal to the precolonial.

Scholars looking at the links between modernity and coloniality work with critical theories of modernity and postmodernity, South asian subaltern studies, Chicana feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and African philosophy. According to Arturo Escobar, the genealogy of the modernity/coloniality research programme associated with decolonial thinking can be traced back through liberation theology of the 1960s and 70s, debates in Latin American social science about liberation theology and autonomous social science, dependency theory, debates on hybridity in anthropology, and communications and cultural studies of the 1990s.

Understanding the relationship between modernity and coloniality is crucial if we are to go towards decolonizing knowledge and the resultant power structures.

According to Walter Mignolo,

'the rhetoric of modernity is that of salvation, whereas the logic of coloniality is a logic of imperial oppression. They go hand in hand, and you cannot have modernity without coloniality; the unfinished project of modernity carries over its shoulders the unfinished project of coloniality.'

The reason for this interrelationship is in the fact that naturalized beliefs about the world order are imperial-colonial, and continue to be so. The beliefs about the inherent differences between the West and the majority of the world, established by the discourse of modernity, which were mobilized both by Christianity and by capitalism, have shaped hegemonic understandings of the world for the last 500 years. These need to be debunked by an epistemic decolonial shift.

Therefore, unlike postcolonialism, decolonial thinkers like Mignolo are not calling for an analysis in terms of 'neo', 'post' or deconstructive - colonialism which he says are 'all changes within the same modern colonial epistemology'. Rather the Decolonial entails a delinking from the rules of the game, a decolonizing of the mind (I call this unlearning).

This process of delinking doesn't mean attempting to exist outside of modernity or indeed Christian, liberal, capitalist or marxist hegemony. Rather, the aim is to reject the naturalizing assumptions made by these four macro-narratives (in this sense, the aim is similar to postcolonialism's repudiation of master narratives).

As Mignolo puts it bluntly, the aim of decolonial thought is to show that the majority of people (who are oppressed and racialized) in the world do not think in terms of, and neither do they care, about things like human rights which are based on an imperial view of humanity. Instead, we should privilege human dignity which is based on a decolonial view of humanity, but which is constantly denied by the rhetoric of modernity in which basic dignity takes second place to progress and the participation in formal structures and institutions such as citizenship, the rule of law, etc.

So, the challenge for the Decolonial is to be committed to a decolonizing of knowledge. If we decolonize knowledge we cannot continue to privilege western modernization because we would have to privilege the work of historical and contemporary thinkers from the Global South instead.

Ramon Grosfoguel points out that doing this does not mean becoming inward looking, anti-European or fundamentalist. On the contrary, a Decolonial approach would be based in a truly universal outlook which looks, as Bhambra says, at how ideas are always arrived at from a variety of sources - there is no one truth out there, but many truths.

At its very core, the decolonial approach challenges us to look at the world from the perspective of a poor Latin American woman, a process which would reveal the organization of power globally in terms of what Anibal Quijano calls the 'colonial power matrix'.

The modernity/coloniality research program

Arturo Escobar in his discussion of the modernity/coloniality research program which has given rise to decolonial thought sets out the five main points around which the linking of modernity and coloniality are based.

These are:

1. An emphasis on the conquest of the Americas as the starting point of modernity, rather than the Enlightenment or the end of the 18th century as is more commonly accepted. Doing this would immediately reveal the relationship between the advent of modernity and colonial domination and uncover the dependence of the western project of modernity upon European domination over the majority world. One is unthinkable without the other. Therefore, modernity should be decentred from its alleged linear progression from Greece to Rome, through Christianity and modern Europe. Instead, a new spatial and temporal conception of modernity should consider the role of Spain and Portugal in the conquest of the Americas as fundamental. Dussel calls this the first modernity which he contrasts to the second modernity which occurred in Northern Europe with the industrial revolution and the Enlightenment.

2. Colonialism needs to be seen as fundamental to the making of the capitalist world system and therefore as constitutive of modernity. This is encapsulated by Anibal Quijano's concept of the 'coloniality of power', which he sees as a hegemonic model of power in place since the Conquest of the Americas. Under 'coloniality of power', race and labour, space and peoples are articulated according to the needs of capital and to the benefit of white European people. So, colonialism is not about the inclusion of non-Europeans in processes of modernization. Rather, it is about their exploitation for the demands of capital and the benefit of people construed as superior all under the guise of progress and civilization. 'Coloniality of power' means the persistence of colonial logics after the end of colonialism. So, the lingering colonial mentality on a world scale explains why global capital is based upon the exploitation of poor workers in the Global South who are still considered racially/ethnically inferior to those in the richer North. This also explains the exploitation of migrant workers in the West/North. This also happens at the level of states, with nations that are considered peripheral (e.g. non powerful/western) being forced to live under a regime imposed on them by the IMF, World Bank, etc. For Grosfogeul, "Peripheral zones remain in a colonial situation even though they are no longer under colonial administration."

3. As a result of seeing colonialism as constitutive of modernity, it is necessary to see modernity as a world-wide process rather than an intra-European phenomenon which is then rolled out across the rest of the world. Enrique Dussel proposes the notion of trans-modernity as a way of encapsulating this. Most critiques of modernity (including postcolonialism if we accept Dirlik's critique) are in fact euro-centred critiques of eurocentrism. In other words, they accept the terms of reference established by European conceptualizations of modernity (such as Marxism). What needs to happen in contrast is for colonial difference to be brought to the fore by privileging the relationship between modernity and coloniality. Transmodernity refuses the idea that critical discourse is uniquely European (something often heard in contemporary discussions of Islam in the West, for example). The aim is to give voice to the negated Other by what Dussel calls 'the negation of the negation' - that is unveiling the subjugation to which subalterns have been subjected to and listening to the silenced counter-discourses of the oppressed. This is similar to what is proposed by the subaltern historians who uncovered the unauthorized and silenced histories of peasants and other subaltern people in the Indian subcontinent. So, for example, Escobar talks about giving value to some of the landmark experiences of decolonization in the teaching of history including the Tupac Amaru rebellion, the Haitian revolution or the more recent anticolonial movements. Instead, what we are seeing is a revaluing of hegemonic colonial history through the institutionalization of revisionist historians such as Niall Ferguson and Linda Collier in the UK or the passing of a law in France in 2003 (later repealed) requiring teachers to teach about the important contributions and sacrifice of the French in North Africa! In today's time, it would be listening to the accounts of poor people of their lives and allowing them to conceptualize their lives in terms of their own experience and being led by them, rather than vice versa. According to Dussel, transmodernity cannot be brought about from within modernity - or from within a logic that privileges modernity. Rather, in that it is what Escobar calls 'the expression of an ethics of liberation'. It needs to be brought about through the action of sub-alternized groups (examples include the Zapatistas, the landless people of Brazil, or the Indian tribal people currently fighting the government in the forests of India).

4. It is fundamental to see the domination of non-Europeans as integral to modernity. This process of domination also led to the silencing of other knowledges and cultures which are then expressed as a lack in comparison to European knowledge and culture. Mignolo's project of colonial difference and global coloniality insists on attending to the knowledge buried by the process of colonial domination.

5. Eurocentrism has to be seen as the knowledge form of modernity/coloniality. This again is also fundamental to the postcolonial critique and involves unveiling the way in which particularized European knowledge constitutes itself as universal to the exclusion and repudiation of other knowledges.

Impacts on the academy

Decoloniality also aims to have an impact on the academy. The aim of the modernity/coloniality research group has also been to decolonize the humanities (if not the university). To a limited extent within Latin America, the proliferation of ideas from liberation theology to autonomous social science through the work of pioneers such as Dussel, going back to the 1970s has had an impact in this direction. But there is clearly far to go.

Walter Mignolo, in particular, has been concerned with the advancing of border epistemologies as ways of 'putting the humanities at the service of decolonial projects'. Border thinking would entail moving beyond the categories imposed by Western epistemology.

But, as discussed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, doing so is made difficult by the embedding of what he calls 'abyssal thinking'. He says that abyssal thinking forms the basis of modern wester thinking. It involves the creation of a system of visible and invisible distinctions where the invisible ones form the foundation of the visible ones. The invisible distinctions divide social reality into two realms, one realm existing 'on this side of the line', and the other 'on the other side of the line'. This 'other side' disappears from analyses because it is constituted as nonexistent, or as irrelevant or incomprehensible.

To make this concrete, de Sousa Santos sees modern knowledge and modern law as the two sites of abyssal thinking. Both construct what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong. Lay, plebian, peasant or indigenous philosophies or world views are made invisible by the visibility of modern knowledge and law. They are put on the other side of the abyssal line.

Western modernity is formally seen as the abandonment of the state of nature. But, according to de Sousa Santos, the state of nature and modern civil society coexist, but the state of nature is put on the other side of the invisible abyssal line. In the context of western modernity, the state of nature is the colonized territories. By putting it outside of modernity, by declaring it the state of nature, and hence overcome, western modern thinking renders the colonized - and thus indigenous knowledge - nonexistent.

This problem confronts the project of building new decolonial epistemologies.

Border thinking

Being committed to a decolonization of knowledge, and hence of social realities, requires an engagement with border thinking, according to Walter Mignolo.

Critical Border thinking, a concept often attributed to Chicana poet and feminist Gloria Anzaldua, is based on the understanding that European culture and thought has been imposed upon the whole world not only through colonialism in the past but through the persistence of western models of 'democracy', 'human rights', etc.

Even decolonised nation-states accept a western ethos by reproducing the nation - which is a European invention - upon populations that did not necessarily want to live within these artificially created territorial units.

Critical border thinking rejects both Eurocentrism and the fundamentalist retreat into anti-western third world identities.

Therefore, things like citizenship, democracy, human rights, humanity and economic relations are disconnected from their presumed origin in westerns institutions/ideologies, and redefined to make sense in non-western contexts.

Grosfoguel gives the examples of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. The Zapatistas are not anti-modern. They accept democracy but redefine it for a local indigenous standpoint.

The Zapatistas use slogans such as 'commanding while obeying' to convey how democracy should be both led by people themselves as well as in respect for elected leaders.

Fundamentally, Gloria Anzaldua and Maria Lugones, for example, also introduce a particular focus on gender as a further power divide. It is not enough to understand global inequalities as dividing lines between the rich North and the poor South. But, gender divides also reproduce these inequalities within and across all societies.

Part of the decolonizing project is to decolonize these uneven power relations between men and women.

Border thinking, then, challenges us to go beyond simple divisions into north and south, rich and poor, us and them, citizen and foreigner, men and woman, straight and queer, etc. The challenge - like for an interconnected understanding of globalization - is how we contain all of these elements in ourselves and, using them, overcome (at least in theory) the resultant inequality.
Bhambra , Gurminder K and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. 2017. 'Introduction: Global Challenges for Sociology', Sociology. Online First 3 Jan 2017.
Bibliography

Bhambra, Gurminder K. (2007) 'Multiple Modernities or Global Interconnections: Understanding the global post the colonial', in N. Karagiannis and P. Wagner (eds.), Varieties of World-Making: Beyond Globalization. Liverpool UP.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000) Provincialising Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference Princeton University Press Introduction and Chapter One (pp. 3-47).

Grosfoguel, Ramon. 2013. 'The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century', Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, XI, Issue 1, Fall 2013, 73-90.

Mignolo, Walter D (2006) 'Citizenship, Knowledge, and the Limits of Humanity'. American Literary History (Cary, NC; Oxford) (18:2): 312-321.

Verges, Francoise (2004) 'Postcolonial Challenges', in Nicholas Gane (ed.) The Future of Social Theory. Continuum. Buck-Morss, Susan 'Hegel and Haiti,' Critical Inquiry 26(4): 821-865.

Fanon, Frantz (1963) 'Concerning Violence', Chapter 1 of The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakrabarty (1988) 'Can the Subaltern Speak?' in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture University of Illinois Press, Chicago

Bhabha, Homi K. (1994) The Location of Culture Routledge, London.

Dirlik, Arif (1994) 'The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism' Critical Inquiry Vol. 20, Winter pp. 328-35

Said, Edward W. (1993) Culture and Imperialism Chatto and Windus, L

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This blog post is republished with the permission of the author, Alana Lentin, from her blog, alanalentin.net. This discussion is a continuation of the discussion begun in the last post, Decolonizing Epistemologies: part 1. Decolonial approach The decolonial approach to the discussion of the relat

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'What “decolonised education” should and shouldn’t mean'

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'What “decolonised education” should and shouldn’t mean'

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by Brenda Wingfield (2017)

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The demand for "decolonised education" may jeopardise research and learning in South Africa. Nic Bothma/EPA

University students in very different countries - South Africa, England and the US - argue that it's time to decolonise higher education. What does this mean? What would acquiescing to the students' push mean for research, science and academic collaboration?

First it's necessary to understand those two words: "decolonisation" and "education". The Cambridge dictionary calls decolonisation "the process in which a country that was previously a colony controlled by another country becomes politically independent".

"Education", meanwhile, is what the Oxford dictionary calls "the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university".

Placed together, then, the decolonisation of education means that a nation must become independent with regards to the acquisition of knowledge skills, values, beliefs and habits. This makes a lot of sense. It's surely what any nation should be doing. But I would argue that the term is being badly misinterpreted among South African students. As one student at the University of Cape Town has explained it:

For decolonised education to be introduced, the existing system must be overthrown and the people it's supposed to serve must define it for themselves.

This is not an isolated view espoused by an individual.

These are very dangerous ideas. What's really important is that South African teachers, lecturers and professors must develop curricula that build on the best knowledge skills, values, beliefs and habits from around the world. These cannot be limited to one country nor one continent - be it Africa or Europe.

And while it may surprise many calling for "decolonised education", South Africa's universities are not ivory towers: they are hotbeds of research solutions for the nation, drawing on local and global theories, thinkers and science. Much of this work could be undone if students push their thinking about "decolonised education" into practice.

Good science transcends geography

Most of the research done at South Africa's universities and by its research councils focus on South African and African questions. The National Research Foundation (NRF) which funds most of the active university researchers in the country has as its object of foundation:

...to support and promote research through funding, human resource development and the provision of the necessary research facilities in order to facilitate the creation of knowledge, innovation and development in all fields of science and technology, including indigenous knowledge and thereby to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of all the people of the Republic.

The first six centres of excellence funded by the country's Department of Science and Technology focused on tuberculosis, biodiversity, invasion biology, tree health, catalysis and strong material. These are all important areas of research for South Africa. Likewise, the Square Kilometre Array is a project which, while funded nationally and internationally, will result in the training of a generation of new knowledge workers - young scientists and engineers. Many of these will be South African and benefit the local economy hugely.

Most of the successful researchers in South Africa I know are dependent on research funding from a local industry. This research helps South African industries to solve problems and is an essential part of their success. These industries employ the citizens of South Africa.

My own research programme is a good example. I collaborate nationally and internationally. I use cutting edge technology and the most recent knowledge from top science journals to study organisms which are of local relevance. I sequenced the first fungal genome in Africa by Africans. I could have done this by outsourcing to technology platforms off the continent, but I didn't.

As a consequence the University of Pretoria, where I hold a South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) position has an internationally competitive research programme on genomics. Our focus is on locally important organisms, but we use the best techniques and methods developed internationally to achieve our research goals. The field is a fast moving one and there are new developments published everyday. We need to keep up with what's happening internationally but also be publishing our own research in the international arena.

Our work in the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute isn't unique. Thousands of researchers around South Africa are using a combination of local skills, local knowledge, global knowledge and technology from different worlds, whether in Africa or elsewhere. It's only by " standing on the shoulders of giants " that, as 12th century theologian John of Salisbury put it, "We can see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature".

Balance is crucial

The risk of adopting student protesters' stance on "decolonising education" is that South Africa rejects all the advances of modern medicine, education and science that originated elsewhere in the world.

This would, for example, mean rejecting the use of penicillin, the yellow fever vaccination and HIV ART drugs. None of these were developed in Africa.

If we isolate ourselves, knowledge wise, South Africa's own amazing advances would be lost to the rest of the world. Other countries are happy to benefit from our discoveries. We should continue to benefit from their discoveries, too.

I'm not suggesting that South African students shouldn't learn about their own country, continent and the remarkable work that's being done by African researchers for African nations. But they should also be learning about advances and theories developed in the rest of the world.

This is already happening in places: Life Science departments at the University of Pretoria, for instance, boasts a curriculum that performs this epistemological balancing act. Students use the best textbooks available. The information in these books is then supplemented with local knowledge and context. Students are taught about DNA and heredity, which is international, but then they learn about the biodiversity of African plants, birds and mammals.

They learn about the organisms that are models internationally for the study of genetics - Yeast, Drosophila, Neurospora and Arabidopsis; they also learn about the research that's being done at the university and elsewhere in South Africa to solve local problems.

The challenge for tertiary educations in South Africa is to ensure that the curriculum presented is based on international best practice. We cannot limit the knowledge base of South Africa's next generations to only regional knowledge and culture. This would be tantamount to "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". We must however, be locally relevant and celebrate the research and researchers in South Africa.

My hope for South Africa is that in some cases we will lead internationally that "best practice"; in some cases we already do.

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What "decolonised education" should and shouldn't mean

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University students in very different countries - South Africa, England and the US - argue that it's time to decolonise higher education. What does this mean? What would acquiescing to the students' push mean for research, science and academic collaboration? First it's necessary to understand those two words: "decolonisation" and "education".

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Heroines of the Haitian Revolution: Tales of Victory and Valour

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Heroines of the Haitian Revolution: Tales of Victory and Valour

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by Christine Ru Pert-em Hru

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Tales of Victory and Valour recounts the stories of African women who played significant roles during the Haitian Revolution.
The book sets the scene by providing a brief overview of the early history of the island of Haiti and the political, social and economic climate in which the Haitian Revolution began. It goes on to highlight the roles played by women such as Cécile Fatiman, the voodoo priestess who features prominently in the Caiman Woods ceremony at the start of the revolution; Marie-Jeanne Lamartiniére, who fought at the famous battle of Crête-à-Pierrot in March 1802 and Sanité Bélair, a sergeant in Toussaint L'Ouverture, revolutionary army.

This book highlights the active involvement of nine courageous women and although little is known about their backgrounds, their stories and contribution takes the form of a narrative set in the context of historical events taking place at the time. It also summarises the role of African women generally during the revolution, but most importantly sheds light on these largely forgotten women and their significant contribution to creating Haiti in 1804 - the first Black independent republic in the New World.
This historical first will be launched on March 11th 2018, in celebration of International Women's Day and Mother's Day. An event not to be missed register now, register here.

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Tales of Victory and Valour recounts the stories of African women who played significant roles during the Haitian Revolution. The book sets the scene by providing a brief overview of the early history of the island of Haiti and the political, social and economic climate in which the Haitian Revolution began.

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PBS documentary titled: Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture & The Haitian Revolution

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The Haitian Revolution - Documentary (2009)

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"The minorities are just on the edge of feeling that they’ve stopped being people from somewhere else, who didn't have anything intrinsic to do with English or British history.  They're just on the edge of feeling, we have been a part of this story from the beginning. . . The teaching of history in schools has to go back and reread the history of empire, not as some sort of dangling appendage out there which you can or can not know about, but as something which is absolutely deep at the heart of English identity."

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Since 1942 the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs has invited prominent people to choose eight tracks they might take with them if they were cast away on a desert island (Clare Sambrook writes). Along with the complete works of Shakespeare and a sacred text, guests may also choose one book and one luxury item. On 13 February 2000 the Castaway, in conversation with presenter Sue Lawley, was Stuart Hall - (the first and only Black academic among the programme's 3000 guests). Here are Stuart Hall's choices and some of his words from the programme:
On Britishness I think the British have a future only if they can come to terms with the fact that Britishness is not one thing and has never been one thing. There have been a million different ways of being British and there have been a million different struggles about Britishness which only retrospectively are then smoothly accommodated into the story as if it's unfolding seamlessly from beginning to end, but it isn't like that.

If you think of last year . . . first of all the celebration of the Windrush Arrival, which is 50 years since the first post-war migrants. On the other hand there is the MacPherson inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. And it seems to me that Britain is facing these two possibilities as an alternative future. I want the British to consciously move, in a more concerted and open way, towards a more cosmopolitan idea of themselves.

On first listening to modern jazz As a young student in Jamaica I listened to a lot of kinds of music, my brother played 40s American swing, we used to play Jamaican folk music, but none of that music belonged to me. The first musical sound that I felt really belonged to me was the sound of modern jazz. It opened up a new world. I knew that it was a world from the margins. It opened up the possibility of really experiencing modern life to the full, and it formed in me the aspiration to go and get it, wherever it was.

1. Miles Davis: Sid's Ahead

On colour, class, family Curiously I'm the blackest member of my family. That's an odd thing to say but, you know, these mixed families produce children of all colours. And in Jamaica the question of exactly what shade you were, in Colonial Jamaica that was the most important question because you could read off class and education and status from that. I was aware and conscious of that from the very beginning.

My families were quite mixed. My father was from the lower middle class, a country family, respectable, his father was a chemist, but not much money. My mother had been adopted by her uncle and aunt and lived most of her life on a small plantation very close to the English, indeed her cousins were educated in England, they never came back. She had grandparents who were white. And she brought into our family all the aspirations of a young plantation woman . . . Nothing Jamaican was really any good, everything was to aspire to be English, to be like the English, or like the Americans. The ideals in our family were somewhere else.

I had this tension throughout my life between what I thought I was, young, bright, Jamaican (Jamaica with aspirations for a growing independence movement, to be free one day) and this refusal of my family to live in that world at all . .

Redemption This is the sound that saved a lot of second generation Black West Indian kids from just, you know, falling through a hole in the ground, because they didn't know who they were, never been taught that they had a slave background, never been taught that they came from Africa. The British didn't want them and suddenly in their transistor sets they heard this voice from a place called Trenchtown that became universally known throughout the world; it's an astonishing thing.

2. Bob Marley: Redemption Song

On arriving at Oxford, aged 19, 1951 My mother delivered me in a felt hat and a check coat, with a steamer trunk, to my scout in Merton College, Oxford. Heaven knows what he made either of her, or of us, or of me. I don't know what I ever did with the steamer trunk. I think I persuaded him to take it into the basement and just lost it.

What I realised the moment I got to Oxford was that someone like me could not really be part of it. I could make a success there. I could even be part accepted into it. But I would never feel it was my place . . . It is the summit of something else, it is distilled Englishness, it's the peak of the English education system. An Oxford education works only because you already know 90 per cent of it in your bones. You absorb the culture. You can't learn those things. I could study English literature, but the cultural buzz that made each text live as part of a whole way of life, was just not me, just not me . .

3. Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major

What to do with the frustration that had built up in Jamaica? What I realised in Oxford was that I couldn't really escape it, I had to go through it, I couldn't just leave it behind. I couldn't become someone else. It was a period really of coming to terms with myself.

I became involved in politics, with people in the Labour Party and young communists and people from the third world. I played in a group at Oxford, which kind of saved my soul some of the time. And we debated furiously . . .

Hungary and Suez That space in politics which was defined on the one hand by the Soviet invasion of Hungary, which told us all one needed to know about the Totalitarianism of that system, and on the other hand the invasion of Egypt which I thought told us that the imperial legacy was not dead as people were saying, it hadn't gone away, it was a very long-lasting reactional response in the English mentality and one had to struggle against it, not just think that it was going to fade away with the winds of change. Somewhere in between, the idea of a democratic, socialist anti-imperial politics was born. And that's the moment of the New Left.

We started in Oxford a small journal called University of the Left Review, and then there was another journal started mainly by people who had left the Communist Party called The New Reasoner and these two journals came together to form New Left Review.

People who ought to have edited it . . . important political people like the historian EP Thompson, had really exhausted themselves in the struggles to found these journals, so me in my early 20s found myself editing these grand figures . . .

The British Film Institute I had a friend, Paddy Whannel, who was the education officer at the British Film Institute. There was no teaching of film in the universities, there was no formal study of film at all . . . We started to do lectures on both film as a serious art form but also on popular cinema. And we tried to write for teachers who wanted to teach this stuff in classrooms but didn't know how on earth to do it. We decided to write a how to do it book called The Popular Arts, but this was really an excuse for reading popular novels and looking at television and listening to rock music and listening to jazz and steeping oneself in popular culture. And one of the things I discovered during that period was the voice of Billie Holiday. . .

4. Billie Holiday: I Cover The Waterfront

Why cultural studies? This was the period of the coming of television, it's the coming of youth culture, of Rock Around the Clock. It's just the explosion of the 20th century in a pre-20th century society. And we wanted to say that school was a place in which you could reflect on life as you know it . . . it's about you and about the life that you are living and about the changes that are going on in front or you.

Really there isn't one kind of literary or cultural value, there are many kinds. You don't go to Shakespeare for the same things you go to Tolstoy or George Eliot. These are different values. You might say that certain works express these values and meanings at a level of complexity and refinement - that's one thing, that's quite true . . .

High culture is really the very selective appropriation of a certain limited range of cultural forms and the investment in that of a kind of social value: it's not that people are really responding to what there is in King Lear, they're appropriating Shakespeare as a kind of badge of I'm an educated person.

On Who Wants to be a Millionaire? There are limits to my taste. But if you ask me should we study it, yes we should study it. It comes right out of everything that has happened in economic life in Britain and the western world in the last ten years. It's the ur-story of the free market . .

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Birmingham, 1970s Marvin Gaye stands for all the music I listened to then. It was a very heady time. We were involved in building this new area of study. I was working with very bright graduate students. We were making it up as we went. There was no discipline to study, so it was hardly a relationship of teacher and taught. They were my friends, my students, my apprentices. I was just married. My wife was a historian, very involved in the early feminist movement. And one of the things we would do is dance.

5. Marvin Gaye: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

The multicultural society Salman Rushdie said, mixture is how newness enters the world. . . . Who wants to be the same throughout time? What you want to do is be different throughout time. It's a process of becoming, not of being . . . it's roots, the various pathways that brought you to where you are that matter . . . Society is kind of drifting into this, it's what I call multicultural drift. But what it is not yet able to say to itself is difference is good, there's something positive about people being different from oneself . . . I think we're on the edge of that and I think that what threatens is the idea that modernity is too difficult for us: let us withdraw behind a little England citadel - that's on the cards too. I think Britain is at an important historical turning point.

The minorities are just on the edge of feeling that they've stopped being people from somewhere else, who didn't have anything intrinsic to do with English or British history. They're just on the edge of feeling, we have been a part of this story from the beginning. . . The teaching of history in schools has to go back and reread the history of empire, not as some sort of dangling appendage out there which you can or can not know about, but as something which is absolutely deep at the heart of English identity.

My wife [ Catherine Hall] works on the connection between England and Jamaica in the 19th century. Every English middle class provincial abolitionist family had a connection with Empire, knew about the Empire, watched lantern slides about it, read about it, heard it preached about in the pulpit. It's an inside part of Englishness. . . It's not a question of: Are you nice to us? It's a question of: We are part of you. And there could come a time when Britain would be proud of saying this is as much intrinsic to who we are as, you know, 1066 . . .

I've always kept going back and listening to the music of my youth. But I like to hear that music rephrased in a modern idiom.

6. Wynton Marsalis Quartet: Caravan

The reason why I'm interested in culture is because culture is the meanings that our inscribed in our actions, in our behaviour, in our every day conduct. And when ideas take root in everyday practice, not a matter of consciously being good to the other, but naturally, organically in our actions, we just think that difference is what is really exciting about the world.

On devolution This is an interesting moment, because curiously, just as the British are giving up on Britishness, we are just discovering it . . . There's a very long time, nearly fifty years, very few people from the Caribbean or from Asia would ever dream of calling themselves British, even in a hyphenated way, and it's just happening now. This is one of the ironies, the quirks of history, that just as you brought down the flag of Empire, we came to discover the Mother Country, and just as you desert Britishness, we discover that we are really pretty British after all: Black and British.

Miles Davis I suppose when I was 19 or 20, I would say Miles Davis put his finger on my soul. The various moods of Miles Davis have matched the evolution of my own feelings. They continue to be a regret for the loss of a life that I might have lived but didn't live. I could have gone back, I could have been a Caribbean person. I'm not that any more. I can't ever be English in the full sense, though I know and understand the British like the back of my hand. The uncertainty, the restlessness and some of the nostalgia for what can not be is in the sound of Miles Davis's trumpet.

There's a funny way in which, because I can never go home again, Jamaica is a kind of fantasy island for me. When I go there I love it, I know what it's like, but it's not me any longer.

7. Miles Davis: I Waited For You

On things to be proud of I felt I was a good teacher. I loved my time with the Open University. When I left the Centre [for Cultural Studies] I wanted to go, not to a place where I taught very bright students who had already had many of the opportunities, I wanted to take those ideas into teaching people who had no formal educational background. I love being a teacher.

I love working collectively with people. I work in Black arts organisations now, with film-makers and people in the visual arts. I'm a sort of enabler of other people doing things. I work best collectively, I work best with a group. So I don't think of these with a sense of personal achievement really. I feel as if my life is a journey which many people have taken, it's a sort of a paradigm of all those people who got on the Windrush and came to try and find another life . .

I want music that will take my soul and make it soar. I've started to listen to opera. I never wanted to go to opera very much. I didn't like the ambiance so much, all those heads nodding through Don Giovanni. But I love the music, the archetypal, the Verdi and Puccini.

8. Puccini: Un bel di vedremo (One fine day- from Madame Butterfly)

Choosing a desert island book The book is a problem because I would be terrified of running out of things to read. . . I want to take a book which, the language is so complex and the sensibility and feelings are so refined, that a paragraph would take a whole day, and that is Henry James's Portrait of a Lady . . .

Luxury item The luxury I want is my grandson Noah. He's only 14 months . . . we have long conversations but he doesn't yet speak. But I know you're not going to allow that. So I'd better take a piano and I'll really, for the first time, teach myself to play the piano properly.

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Since 1942 the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs has invited prominent people to choose eight tracks they might take with them if they were cast away on a desert island (Clare Sambrook writes). Along with the complete works of Shakespeare and a sacred text, guests may also choose one book and one luxury item.

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by Dalia Gebrial

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Here, 'history' is not the ongoing and deeply contested process of narrative building around the past; a process over which the present has agency, and which is often - in its most mainstream form - shaped in the image of dominant ideological frameworks. Rather, 'history' is fixed, unquestionable and precious because it preserves a particular reading of the past, which reinforces a particular understanding of the present; like the statue, its objectivity rises above the emotional, hand-wringing rabble, who are declared intellectually unfit to participate in the process of its production. What this demonstrates so clearly, is that the construction of a curriculum at any education level is the product of a power struggle; however, it is not perceived as such. Rather, it appears as a 'natural' process, in which disciplinary canons and narrative framings come into being through apolitical, 'rational' means that do not themselves need to be scrutinised; indeed, the very claim to apolitical greatness is itself the defining feature of the canon.

It was this assumption that RMFO threw into question. It asked: what is omitted from curricula in all disciplines, and what does this tell us about the purpose of education as we see it? Any curriculum must, by definition, exclude - the question is what is excluded and why, and whether the purpose of our education system should be to perpetuate existing power structures and norms, or equip students with the critical tools to question them. Furthermore, RMFO made connections between these knowledge gaps, and the structural, material inequalities they engender both within the academy and, most importantly, beyond the academy. As this volume will elaborate, these interrogations are not just relevant in history departments - although their importance comes to light with particular starkness here. The significance of Empire in shaping institutions of knowledge production and disciplinary canons spans the entire academy; every discipline carries with it colonial modalities of thinking that have eluded adequate scrutiny.

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Decolonising the University edited by Gurminder K. Bhambra, Dalia Gebrial and Kerem Nişancıoğlu is available from Pluto Press.

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Dalia Gebrial is a PhD candidate at LSE, University of London, editor at Novara Media and the editor of a special issue of the Historical Materialism journal on identity politics.

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What does it mean for Rhodes to fall? Education and the British Empire

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Here, 'history' is not the ongoing and deeply contested process of narrative building around the past; a process over which the present has agency, and which is often - in its most mainstream form - shaped in the image of dominant ideological frameworks.

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by Sista Resista (2018)

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Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1986)

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Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1986)

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Decolonising the Mind is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity. The book, which advocates for linguistic decolonization, is one of Ngũgĩ’s best-known and most-cited non-fiction publications, helping to cement him as a pre-eminent voice theorizing the “language debate” in post-colonial studies.

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Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature

Decolonising the Mind is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity. The book, which advocates for linguistic decolonization, is one of Ngũgĩ's best-known and most-cited non-fiction publications, helping to cement him as a pre-eminent voice theorizing the "language debate" in post-colonial studies.

Ngũgĩ describes the book as "a summary of some of the issues in which I have been passionately involved for the last twenty years of my practice in fiction, theatre, criticism, and in teaching of literature..." Decolonising the Mind is split into four essays: "The Language of African Literature," "The Language of African Theatre," "The Language of African Fiction," and "The Quest for Relevance."

Many of the ideas are familiar from Ngugi's earlier critical books, and earlier lectures, elsewhere. But the material here has a new context and the ideas a new focus. This leading African writer presents the arguments for using African language and forms after successfully using an African language himself.
-The Guardian

After 25 years of independence, there is beginning to emerge a generation of writers for whom colonialism is a matter of history and not of direct personal experience. In retrospect that literature characterised by Ngugi as Afro-European - the literature written by Africans in European languages - will come to be seen as part and parcel of the uneasy period between colonialism and full independence, a period equally reflected in the continent's political instability as it attempts to find its feet. Ngugi's importance - and that of this book - lies in the courage with which he has confronted this most urgent of issues.
-The New Statesman

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BUY THE BOOK Paperback: 114 pages Publisher: James Currey, 1986 Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature Decolonising the Mind is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity.

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The Fight For Ukraine: Last Days of the Revolution (2014) Vice News

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The Fight For Ukraine: Last Days of the Revolution (2014) Vice News

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[Note: Contains graphic scenes of violence]

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The Fight for Ukraine: Last Days of the Revolution

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'The racist ideas of slave owners are still with us today'

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'The racist ideas of slave owners are still with us today'

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Catherine Hall (2016)

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The racist ideas of slave owners are still with us today | Catherine Hall

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The surge in hate crime since the Brexit vote is one legacy of an overlooked period of British history

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‘Where do we fit in?’ Black and Asian British History on the Curriculum

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‘Where do we fit in?’ Black and Asian British History on the Curriculum

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Institute of Historical Research,  04 Dec 2018, 18:00 to 04 Dec 2018, 20:45

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'Where do we fit in?' Black and Asian British History on the Curriculum | Institute of Historical Research

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The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) provides resources for historians, including a major research library, digital projects, seminars and lectures, conferences, books and journals,podcasts and Ma/PhD study and research training.