Though there are so many definitions in existence, decolonialism can be understood as a process or mindset market by a commitment to eradicate the colonial aspects of culture, education, and society. It is a way for us to re-learn the knowledge that has been lost, pushed aside, buried, or discredited by the institutions of colonialism, modernity, and racial capitalism. Thus colonialism reveals the ‘dark’ side of modernity. Decolonialism then attempts to rediscover and acknowledge the experience of BIPOC and colonized people while also decentering hetero/cis-normativity, gender hierarchies, and racial privilege.
(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-02/theres-no-such-thing-as-upside-down-world-map-racist/12495868)
Famous thinkers from the decoloniality movement include Anibal Quijano, María Lugones, and Walter D Mignolo. A lot of decolonial theory comes from South American scholars, including The Coloniality of Power, a famous piece written by Quijano. Decoloniality seeks to understand the intrinsic relationship between colonial conditions and the imposition of a Western logic of ‘modernity’ as a consequence of colonialism. It is therefore structured as an epistemological project more than a political one, grounded in an indigenous framework that centers native voices.
It is worth noting that decolonialism is subtly different from decolonization, which refers to the physical and political shift of power between colonizing powers and their (soon-to-be) former subjects. Decolonization is the path back to self-governance that Indigenous and other marginalized communities lost in the process of colonization.
– Walter D. Mignolo, 2018
“Decoloniality is a perspective, stance, and proposition of thought, analysis, sensing, making, doing, feeling, and being that is actional, praxistical, and continuing”
(https://www.theindigenousfoundation.org/articles/decolonization-in-everyday-life)
Decolonialism is also separate from postcolonialism, a conceptual framework developed around the ideas of Edward W. Said, Homi K. Bhabha, and Gayatri C. Spivak, among others. Many of the scholars behind postcolonialism hail from the Middle East and South Asia. Edward Said’s famous work, Orientalism, is a key piece within the postcolonial movement. Postcolonialism is primarily an analysis of discourse that serves as a marker of the ongoing effects of colonialism on a former colony. It focuses on the political, economic, social, cultural, and historical impacts of European colonialism. Scholars in this movement have identified that even after the independence of colonial nations, the structures of dominance and exploitation are often perpetuated by the new native elites.
Though we are focusing on decolonialism as a transformative way of knowing in the Pluriverse, both decolonization and postcolonialism are helpful subjects to understand as we move forwards into a more just and equitable world.
Decolonial Critique
Decolonial critique employs theoretical, political, epistemic, and social frameworks advanced by decoloniality to analyze widely accepted and celebrated concepts. It focuses mainly on reformulating the current concept of modernity, which is rooted within colonial and radical framework (Torres, 2017). Some well known decolonial critiques are: decolonial aesthetics, decolonial feminism, and decolonial love.
Decolonial Aesthetics and Art
Decolonial aesthetics questions Western standards of beauty and representation as the determinant for art and its value. These Euro-centric principles of art and aesthetics alienate the surrounding world with their focus on pursuing the “beautiful” and “sublime”. This devalues any sensory experience that fits outside of Euro-centric aesthetic standards. So, decolonial art confronts these standards, and aims to deregulate what sensations our bodies respond to from culture as well as nature (Transnational Decolonial Institute, 2017). Decolonial art aims to evoke feelings of “sadness, indignation, repentance, hope, solidarity, resolution to change the world in the future, and, most importantly, with the restoration of human dignity” (Tlostanova, 2017, pg. 41).
Decolonial Feminism
Decolonial feminism engages with coloniality and modernity while providing a space for the voices and experiences of “othered” women. Decolonial feminism is a revision of the Western, white, and bourgeois view of feminism. It builds upon the work of non-western, indigenous, women of color activists that are engaged in women’s movements. Decolonial feminism proposes a worldview of understanding gender that emanates from the views of marginalized women in the Global South. Using this framework helps shed light on the complexities of the women’s lived experiences. Additionally, engagement with women from the global south highlights the contributions they can make to the understanding of work and organization. Decolonial feminism has three main contributions: challenging coloniality, capitalism and patriarchy; entering a dialogue with women from the Global South to bring insight and perspectives on social and economic struggles, and also worldviews; calling for pluriversality (Espinosa Miñoso, 2020).
Decolonial Love
Decolonial love pushes for a change in the thinking around who and how people love. It calls for people to let go of privileges and to closely examine how the forces of oppressions play out in our lives. Without doing this, people will stay stuck in the ideologies of colonialism and modernity. Decolonial love steps away from western views of: patriarchy, gender, sexuality, skinny worship, classism, ableism and “pigmentation politics”. Instead, it encourages an accountable love that reciprocates beauty and wholeness between peoples — moving relationships into a realm of radical self and interpersonal love (Liu, 2014).
Decolonizing Thought
Colonialism permeates all aspects of life in our society. Colonization of our minds is an internalization of these widespread and dangerous ideologies. Overt colonization of the mind includes externalized discrimination, while covert colonization of the mind includes internalized racism, misogyny, and other forms of discrimination. Through educating ourselves in other ways of knowing, such as indigenous thought, feminist thought, and more, we can begin to decolonize our minds. We can understand where we devalue ourselves, why we do, and how we can remove the colonial mindset from how we value our individual existence.
Espinosa Miñoso, Yuderkys. “Why We Need Decolonial Feminism: Differentiation and
Co-Constitutional Domination in Western Modernity .” Afterall, July 1, 2020.
https://www.afterall.org/article/why-we-need-decolonial-feminism-differentiation-and-co-constitutional-domination-of-western-modernity
Liu, Anni. “Say Yes to Decolonial Love: 5 Ways to Resist Oppression in Your Relationships.”
Everyday Feminism, December 9, 2014. https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/decolonial-love/
Mignolo, Walter, and Catherine E Walsh. 2018. On Decoloniality : Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham, Nc ; London: Duke University Press.
Torres, Nelson Maldonado. “Fanon and Decolonial Thought.” Encyclopedia of Educational
Philosophy and Theory, 2017, 799–803. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-588-4_506.
Transnational Decolonial Institute. “Decolonial Aesthetics (I).” TDI+Transnational Decolonial
Institute, July 17, 2017. https://transnationaldecolonialinstitute.wordpress.com/decolonial-aesthetics/.
Tlostanova, Madina. Postcolonialism and Postsocialism in Fiction and Art: Resistance and
Re-Existence. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 41.