Decolonization of knowledge

Epistemological decolonization reflects into the historical mechanisms of knowledge production and its colonial and ethnocentric foundations. It has been argued that knowledge and the standards that determine the validity of knowledge have been disproportionately informed by Western system of thought and ways of thinking about the universe.[4] The western knowledge system that had been developed in Europe during renaissance and Enlightenment was deployed to legitimise Europe’s colonial endeavour that eventually became a part of colonial rule and forms of civilization that the colonizers carried with them. The knowledge produced in Western system has been attributed a universal character and claimed to be superior over other systems of knowledge. Decolonial scholars concur that the western system of knowledge still continues to determine as to what should be considered as scientific knowledge and continues to "exclude, marginalise and dehumanise" those with different systems of knowledge, expertise and worldviews.[3] Anibal Quijano observed:

In effect, all of the experiences, histories, resources, and cultural products ended up in one global cultural order revolving around European or Western hegemony. Europe’s hegemony over the new model of global power concentrated all forms of the control of subjectivity, culture, and especially knowledge and the production of knowledge under its hegemony. During that process, the colonizers...repressed as much as possible the colonized forms of knowledge production, the models of the production of meaning, their symbolic universe, the model of expression and of objectification and subjectivity.[5]

In community groups and social movements in the Americas, decolonization of knowledge traces its roots back to resistance against colonialism from its very beginning in 1492.[6] Its emergence as an academic concern is rather a recent phenomenon. Enrique Dussel argues that the theme of epistemological decolonization has originated from a group of Latin American thinkers.[7] Although the notion of decolonization of knowledge has been an academic topic since the seventies, Walter Mignolo argues that it was the ingenious work of Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano that "explicitly linked coloniality of power in the political and economic spheres with the coloniality of knowledge."[8] It developed as "an elaboration of a problematic" that began because of a number of critical positions such as postcolonialism, subaltern studies and postmodernism. Dussel also confirms that epistemological decolonization is structured around the notions of coloniality of power and transmodernity which traces its roots in the thoughts of José Carlos Mariátegui, Frantz Fanon and Immanuel Wallerstein.[7] Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues that although political, economic, cultural and epistemological dimensions of decolonization were and are intricately related to each other, attainment of political sovereignty was preferred as a "practical strategic logic of struggles against colonialism." Hence, political decolonization of twentieth century failed to deliver epistemological decolonization as it did not widely inquire into the complex domain of knowledge.[9]

The concerns of decolonisation of knowledge are that the western knowledge system has become a norm for global knowledge and its methodologies are considered to be the only form of true knowledge. This hegemonic approach towards other knowledge systems has resulted in reduction of epistemic diversity and constituted the center of knowledge which eventually suppressed all other forms of knowledge.[10] Boaventura de Sousa Santos argues that "throughout the world, not only are there very diverse forms of knowledge of matter, society, life and spirit, but also many and very diverse concepts of what counts as knowledge and criteria that may be used to validate it."[11] This diversity of knowledge systems, however, has not gained much recognition.[12] Lewis Gordon acknowledges that the formulation of knowledge in its singular form itself is unknown to times before the emergence of European modernity. Modes of knowledge production and notions of knowledge were so diversified that knowledges, in his opinion, would be more appropriate description.[13] For Walter Mignolo, the modern foundation of knowledge is thus territorial and imperial. This foundation is based on "the socio-historical organization and classification of the world founded on a macro narrative and on a specific concept and principles of knowledge" which finds its roots in European modernity.[14] He articulates epistemic decolonization as an expansive movement that targets "geo-political locations of theology, secular philosophy and scientific reason" and simultaneously affirms "the modes and principles of knowledge that have been denied by the rhetoric of Christianization, civilisation, progress, development and market democracy."[9] Achille Mbembe argues that knowledge decolonization means contesting the hegemonic western epistemology that suppresses anything that is foreseen, conceived and formulated from outside of western epistemology.[15] Savo Heleta contends that decolonization of knowledge "implies the end of reliance on imposed knowledge, theories and interpretations, and theorizing based on one’s own past and present experiences and interpretation of the world."[3]

For Anibal Quijano, epistemological decolonization is necessary for creating new avenues for intercultural communication, interchange of experiences and meanings as the foundation of another rationality which may justifiably claim some universality.[16] Sabelo Gatsheni argues that epistemological decolonization is crucial in handling the "asymmetrical global intellectual division of labor" in which Europe and North America not only act as teachers of the rest of the world, but also have become the "sites of theory and concept production", which are ultimately "consumed’ by the entire human race."[17]

Decolonization of knowledge is neither about de-westernization nor about refusing western science or western knowledge system as a whole. It is because, as Lewis Gordon argues, decolonization of knowledge mandates a detachment from the "commitments to notions of an epistemic enemy."[18] It rather emphasizes "the appropriation of any and all sources of knowledge" in order to achieve relative epistemic autonomy and epistemic justice for "previously unacknowledged and/or suppressed knowledge traditions."[19]

Raewyn Connel states:

The colonized and postcolonial world [..] has actually been a major participant in the making of the dominant forms of knowledge in the modern era, which we too easily call ‘Western science’. The problem is not the absence of the majority world, but its epistemological subordination within the mainstream economy of knowledge. This economy has been profoundly shaped by what the Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano (2000) has called the ‘coloniality of power’. In consequence, a wealth of knowledge produced in colonized and postcolonial societies has never been incorporated into the mainstream economy, or is included only in marginal ways.[20]

Decolonizing knowledge is therefore about recognizing those unincorporated or marginalised forms of knowledge. Firstly, this includes indigenous knowledge, which was dismissed by the colonialist ideology. Secondly, it endorses alternative universalisms, i.e., knowledge systems having general and not just local application, which have not derived from the Eurocentric knowledge economy. The fairly known system among these, as Connel argues, is Islamic knowledge. This is not, however, the only alternative universalism. Indian knowledge tradition has also been suggested as an alternative to the current economy of knowledge. Thirdly, it concerns Southern theory, i.e., knowledge framework developed during colonial encounter which emphasizes, contradicting the popular assumption, that the colonized and the postcolonial world has been affluent in theoretical thinking and that these societies have continually produced concepts, analyses and creative ideas.[20]

Describing a possible African approach towards decolonization of knowledge, Achille Mbembe writes:

The western archive is singularly complex. It contains within itself the resources of its own refutation. It is neither monolithic nor the exclusive property of the west. Africa and its diaspora decisively contributed to its making and should legitimately make foundational claims on it. Decolonizing knowledge is therefore not simply about de-westernization.[21]

Walter Mignolo theorises his approach for decolonizing knowledge in terms of delinking which should ultimately lead to decolonial epistemic shift and foregrounds "other epistemologies, other principles of knowledge and understanding."[8]

• Coloniality of power
• Decoloniality
• Decolonization