The decolonial bandwagon and the dangers of intellectual decolonisation

ABSTRACT

In recent years, ‘intellectual decolonisation’ has become so popular in the Global North that we can now speak of there being a ‘decolonial bandwagon’. This article identifies some of the common limitations that can be found in this growing field of intellectual decolonisation. First and foremost, it is suggested that intellectual decolonisation in the Global North may be characterised by Northerncentrism due to the way in which decolonial scholarship may ignore decolonial scholars from the Global South. In order to address this ‘decolonisation without decolonising’, this article offers an alternative genealogy of intellectual decolonisation by discussing some of the most important yet neglected decolonial theory from the Global South. Thereafter, five other common limitations which may appear in discussions about intellectual decolonisation are identified, which are: reducing intellectual decolonisation to a simple task; essentialising and appropriating the Global South; overlooking the multifaceted nature of marginalisation in academia; nativism; and tokenism. The objective of this article is to highlight common limitations which may be present in discussions about intellectual decolonisation so as to provide a warning that some manifestations of intellectual decolonisation may not only be inadequate but may even reinscribe coloniality.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonisation
• decolonial theory
• coloniality
• decoloniality
• Northerncentrism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Dr Leon Moosavi is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is concurrently the Director of the University of Liverpool in Singapore. Leon's research has focused on Islamophobia, conversion to Islam, and race in Muslim communities. Since relocating to Singapore in 2013, he has also been researching academic imperialism, racism in academia and the decolonisation of higher education.

Notes

1 I do not discuss the contributions of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said because, even though they are highly relevant to intellectual decolonisation, their works are already relatively well known, even if they are not as mainstream as some of us would like them to be. Instead, I focus on other decolonial scholars from the Global South who have been even more neglected than Fanon and Said whilst simultaneously and emphatically insisting that Fanon and Said must also be understood as essential contributors to our understanding of intellectual decolonisation.