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Why are there few people of color in library and information science (LIS)? This haunting question frames the context for critical reflection, and based on an application of critical race theory, inspires a thematic deconstruction "one brick at a time" to dismantle entrenched, white-centered power structures in American LIS educational programs. The power differentials that racism creates, and its underlying structures, need to be intentionally/systematically dismantled via deconstructing the following six foundational units (i.e., bricks): Decolonize privileged cultural inheritance of Anglo/Eurocentricity; dethrone highest situatedness of positivist/postpositivist paradigms; destabilize predominant "theory-building" without information actions; dismantle white privilege in the hiring "your own"; contest white faculty privilege demanding "equal" treatment without earned credentials; demand culpability for white (mis)appropriations of minority race/ethnicity-related content. Lessons are globally relevant since American racism is a legacy of an Anglo/Eurocentric colonialist/imperialist order shaping historical and contemporary neoliberal political, social, cultural, and economic intersections around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates the sweeping notion of ‘Persianate Sufism’ and its intersection with language, religion, and ethnicity in the context of Iran. It begins by tracing the origin of the Persianate World, a term first coined by Marshall Hodgson, and demonstrates how Iranian scholars and historians have exploited this concept to forge a Persian-centric reading of religious texts across Iran and beyond. We argue that the Persianate World echoes a Eurocentric and Orientalist model of knowledge that produces a skewed and exoticized representation of non-Persian histories and memories, thus overlooking their distinctive cultural presence, heritages, and contributions. Our research underlines Sufism as a vibrant and diverse spiritual tradition that transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries, embodying a rich array of dynamic expressions. Finally, our study invites a critical revision of the broad generalizations and cultural domination that the concept of the Persianate World entails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite revolutions, ongoing student protests, and long-standing transformational efforts, African higher education remains steeped in a colonial model, with current structures, approaches, and purposes paralleling Western universities. The doctorate, the highest level of formal education one can attain, reflects this commitment to Western domination, relying upon European conceptions of knowledge to shape the entire research process. Thus, knowledge construction in higher education, and particularly in the African doctorate, has remained fixed to Eurocentrism. This conceptual article presents a critical race theory model to transform the African doctorate towards a social justice orientation, arguing for investments in race-conscious, Black affirming approaches that recognise doctoral researcher positionalities and African languages as ways to disrupt socio-political and racialised contexts. This transformation requires re-alignment of the entire research endeavour through an Ubuntu lens, with doctoral recipients engaging in training and support that embody antiracist, decolonial, and African Indigenous-affirming approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper addresses the stated need for art educators to develop inquiries into the history of non-Western, non-Anglophone art education systems. In response, we look at data taken from the history of Israeli art education and the development of Israeli art curricula in order to offer a historical sketch of the development of school art curricula in Israel. We frame our sketch using the perspectives of multiculturalism and critical theory. In the course of our discussion we reference scholarship from North America and Europe. However, our focus is primarily on shifts in Israeli policy in the direction of acknowledging greater diversity and multiculturalism. We trace these themes, starting with pre-state Israel and concluding with contemporary Israeli concerns with equity and social justice. We note parallel concerns with the same social issues in scholarship from North America and Europe. The main purpose of this comparison is to bring attention to the "blind spots" and "black holes" in Israeli visual arts syllabi where both Arab and Jewish Eastern culture and esthetics have been overlooked. We note parallels between these omissions in the Israeli visual arts curricula and attempts to correct similar lacunae in North American visual arts education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that fashion curation in Latin America must be redesigned in order to disseminate the complex histories of fashion in the region, which are inherently tinted with forms of systemic oppression that stem from European invasions and colonialism. It begins with two recent case studies from Colombia before moving onto a brief overview of the development of fashion curation in Latin America, which highlights the dominance of Eurocentric views of fashion in exhibitions throughout the region. To move beyond these limited narratives, the article ends by offering some initial ideas to redirect future curatorial practices and strategies based on contemporary and critical approaches that engage with decolonial scholarship around fashion in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban scholars have long engaged with the role of culture in cities. Tracing this debate, this article outlines the evolutions of culture as an object of study in inquiries on the urban and wishes to trouble two persisting trends in this literature. The first is a geographical and theoretical Eurocentric vision of culture, often framing cities beyond the West as exceptions or needing validation through a comparison with a Western case or theoretical model; the second is an economistic vision of culture under neoliberalism, neglecting the political and ideological dimensions of culture. As a step in overcoming these limitations, this article builds around the notion of 're-learning', to re-insert memory, informality and conflicting heritage into the debate on culture in cities. Drawing on an ethnography of the street 'Avenida 26' in Bogotá, Colombia, the article shows that informal cultural practices in the middle of segregation and urban violence can hardly be grasped through the current framing of culture in cities. Yet, they invite an opening up of such a framing to include different ways to cohabit and navigate space through everyday minor engagements. These multifaceted cultural realities urge us to 're-learn' culture in cities anywhere and advance theorisation on culture that takes non-Western urban spaces seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syed Farid Alatas is a Malaysian sociologist who has been highly influential in discussions about decolonising knowledge. He has also continued the legacy of his esteemed father, Syed Hussein Alatas, by furthering 'the School of Autonomous Knowledge' in the Malay Archipelago and beyond. This article presents a wide-ranging, comprehensive and rich dialogue between Farid and Leon Moosavi. In this conversation, pertinent questions are asked: How does Farid's approach to decolonising knowledge differ from other decolonial scholars? What exactly does Farid mean when he talks of 'intellectual imperialism', 'alternative discourses' and 'academic dependency'? This dialogue also explores Farid's extensive engagement with the Islamic/Muslim sphere, including topics such as: Ibn Khaldun, Muslim revivalism, Muslim sectarianism and the Islamisation of knowledge. The discussion also explores some potential critiques of Farid's intellectual contributions with challenging questions: Can Farid's theoretical ideals be applied in 'the real world' or are they confined to an audience of intellectual elites? Is Farid anti-Western? Or, actually, does his work inadvertently fall into the trap of Westerncentrism? This article offers a unique insight into the intellectual biography of one of the most notable social theorists of the current era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the Special Issue delves into the intersection of critical discursive approaches and intersectionality in the study of language, gender, and societal inequalities. It traces the evolution of gender and language studies, with a focus on how discursive methodologies have facilitated the examination of the material consequences of discourse, particularly in relation to power, gender, and social structures. The aim of this Special Issue is to foster academic synergy by merging discursive and intersectional frameworks to analyze how socio-cultural categories—such as gender, race, and class, among others—intersect to produce inequalities. Furthermore, the issue incorporates a decolonial perspective, critically engaging with the Eurocentric foundations of existing methodologies and advocating for a more inclusive analysis of global power dynamics. The articles within this issue adopt interdisciplinary approaches, including Critical Discourse Studies and Sociocultural Linguistics, to explore diverse experiences and social structures. By integrating these frameworks, the issue offers a multifaceted understanding of how intersecting identities shape discourse and social power relations, underscoring the importance of critical praxis and self-reflexivity in academic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian—the largest cruise lines today—emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, advertising their packaged vacations to a growing audience of middle-class Americans interested in encountering cultural difference. This article argues that, beginning in the late 1970s and continuing into the following decade, the cultural representations that these mass-market companies leveraged drew on Eurocentric understandings of Caribbean societies, homogenizing those countries despite attempts to showcase difference. These companies also reimagined global cultures Eurocentrically in onboard themed experiences. As both a product and agent of globalization, the mass-market cruise industry selectively deployed referents in ways that increased the appeal of cruising as escapism while reducing the likelihood of cultural confusion and reassuring passengers of their comfort. Through these processes, companies produced cruise ships as metaspaces while simultaneously expanding the construction of metaspaces to ports as they gained economic and political power in the Caribbean. This process resulted in the erasure of cultural difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractModern Nigerian poetry in English was dominated in the 1950s and 1960s by the writing of Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, and Christopher Okigbo. The trio, regarded as pioneers and the first generation of Nigerian poets, succeeded largely with their adoption of modernist techniques to convey African material. By the 1970s, their writing came under scrutiny with the call to decolonise African literature and, by extension, Nigerian poetry in English. In this article, I demonstrate how Niyi Osundare demystifies the form and language of Nigerian poetry in English by the creative deployment of oral techniques in selected poems. I argue that Osundare, as a Nigerian second-generation poet, decolonises and democratises modern Nigerian poetry by delinking from his predecessors’ Eurocentric conception of poetry. The article is in five parts. The first part provides an introduction, the second is a background review of the development of Nigerian poetry in English from which the research problem, purpose, and aim are identified. The third part is on the structure of The Word is an Egg. The fourth part analyses the oral poetic techniques employed by Osundare as decolonial creative strategies, and the fifth provides a concluding attestation of the transformative nature of Osundare’s poetic art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a political and pedagogic project, decolonisation involves the deconstruction of dominant Eurocentric forms of knowledge production, and the pluralisation of the knowledge field. But, in the case of a divided Cyprus, such practices and structures take on different meanings, within and beyond different contexts. In this article we link feminisms of resistance to curricular practices as a decolonial pathway to erasure of epistemic and gendered violence. If we are to suggest a collective project of decolonisation of higher education in Cyprus, we initially need to deconstruct conceptual frameworks of social justice through decolonising pedagogic practices. We consider ‘translanguaging decoloniality’ as one such avenue to pedagogic praxis through enabling cultural subversions, storytelling in the curriculum, and re‐framing/re‐telling narratives of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractEuropean conservation-restoration training programmes offer curricula that tend to be rooted in Eurocentrism. Over the last decades, conservation scholars have called for a re-interpretation of the sector, based on a need to acknowledge and respond to global social developments, including the call for decolonisation—calls that would naturally change training programmes. In Australia and Canada, for example, training programmes long ago embarked on a path of reforming their curricula and including non-Eurocentric ways of conserving. On the other hand, higher education programmes in conservation in Europe have only recently begun to discuss alternatives to their current curricula. To address this concern, this article focusses on approaches aimed at ‘decolonising the curriculum’ as a means for European conservation training programmes to achieve greater alignment with current social developments. Such approaches may serve as a strategic device for formulating recommendations geared to triggering curricula transformations and bringing them into line with major social issues in our contemporary world, as well as to provide a broader and more diverse epistemic foundation for the professional efforts of future conservation experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crises of the Islamic world revolve around “epistemic colonialism.” So, in order to decolonize the Muslim mind, we must be able to deconstruct the Western episteme, and this involves dissociating ourselves from the Eurocentric knowledge system that gradually became ascendent since the Renaissance through such ideas as progress and modernity. However, this does not mean we need to discontinue dialog with Western thought. Rather it means retrieving and reviving our own intellectual heritage and being able to think with the categories and concepts derived from that heritage. But in light of the postcolonial situation where the intellectual and linguistic connection with one's own tradition is severed, this is a tremendous challenge. What is more, many Muslim intellectuals simply think that Islamic heritage has little relevance to address contemporary challenges. Yet unless Muslims are able to ground their self‐identity in their own intellectual tradition, they will be held captive to the web of epistemic colonialism. They might be comfortable offering their prayers as Muslims, but their mental ambience will be permeated by devastating, Eurocentric ideas. They will hardly be able to overcome their fragmented self‐image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moroccan Jewish writer Ruth Knafo Setton’s novel, The Road to Fez, challenges the Eurocentric silencing of Sephardic female agency. Setton depicts a reverse exile through her main character, Brit, whose return to Morocco subverts the dispossession and uprooting of the Moroccan Sephardim following their forced exile. Central to Setton’s novel is an effort to put emphasis on the Moroccan Judeo-Islamic landscape and mythology. In re-vindicating Moroccan Jewish-Muslim heritage, The Road to Fez further questions the exclusion of Sephardic female voices in Eurocentric readings of Jewishness. Setton presents an alternative Jewish perspective through Moroccan Judeo myths and legends. This article analyzes Setton’s magical realist integration of Moroccan spirituality and superstition into her narrative as an attempt to de-Orientalize the Sephardic female experience. The article argues that Setton incorporates supernatural elements like spell-making and “djnoun” into a realistic setting to express the rich mosaic of Sephardic Moroccan culture and to destabilize pan-Arabist, Zionist and colonial occlusions of Arab Judeo identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout his correspondence and writings, Leibniz made a number of passing references to the religion of the Mohammadans (Islam) and to several Islamic commentators. Recent literature on these references has placed them in the context of Leibniz's political and historical interests that largely reflect his Eurocentric prejudices. The purpose of this paper is to extract a more detailed and systematic view of Leibniz's knowledge of and interest in the religion, through Leibniz's remarks on Islam in relation to Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, through the commentary of Maimonides and the Christian Averroists, and through a (partly speculative) comparison of three types of theodicy. The paper concludes that while Leibniz knew very little about Islam's actual doctrines, and that he was subject to the prejudicial views of his time, he understood Islam, as he did Christianity, as largely in conformity with natural (rational) religion. At the same time, his interest in its specific doctrines was primarily instrumental, that is, as correctives to certain abusive practices and misunderstandings persisting within Christianity, which could then explain for him why Islam prevailed in the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary migration research is currently witnessing an increased interest in the impact of colonialism, decolonization, and expertization on present-day integrationism and racism. Tracing the genealogy of current ways of framing, categorizing, and governing groups viewed as "migrant Others" forms part of a reflexive research agenda that analyses migration as a product of changing constellations and categorizations. The article takes up this interest in the recent (and sometimes less recent) past in migration research. Bringing this interdisciplinary body of work into conversation with historical scholarship, we discuss how migration scholars make use of historical genealogies and we identify three different ways of relating the past to the present in debates about current migration and border regimes: We distinguish between what we term an anthropological "deep history" mode, a "genealogical" mode, and a "contrapuntal" or "disruptive" mode. This article argues for a careful, reflexive use of the past. We contend that both the alterity of past discourses and practices and their persistence and lasting impact can help us better make sense of the present in critical migration research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global movement toward disaster resilience seeks to reconceptualize societal response to shock. Yet, despite disaster resilience's interdisciplinary and collaborative components, some contemporary scholarship argues the praxis may subjugate and harm stakeholders. Seeking clarity regarding the decolonial and critical perspectives contesting Eurocentric disaster resilience, our article employs a thematic analysis to examine how disaster resilience may enshrine systemic problems of inequity and subjugation. Our findings offer new ideas to challenge dominant understanding of disaster resilience, creating a typology of overlapping characteristics and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys the scholarship surrounding the history of African political thought, which is a growing interdisciplinary area of study. The study of the history of political thought has a long tradition but has tended to be Eurocentric, with limited reference to the Global South. Recent decades have seen moves to correct this, with more research being given over to African political thought, both ancient and modern. This article explores the plethora of discussions, which are happening in the field, including how the subject is defined, the impact of theories of decolonisation and the relationship between African thought and ideas from elsewhere in the world. In doing this it, also notes where there is scope for further research to be done. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractMuslim women are often represented as lacking freedom of choice and agency in literary and media discourses. This supposed lack in native Muslim societies is thought to be redeemed by Western interventions by championing ideals of freedom, equality, and liberty. This assumption is problematic as it is governed by the thought that Muslim women are not “agentic” and need external forces to speak for them. It also prioritises the West as the superior other creating a vast gap between them and the rest. This may be seen as an effect of the Eurocentric or Neo-orientalist school of thought that strives at “othering” Muslims and Islam. These discourses include not only the writings of some eminent Western scholars in line with the Orientalist school of thought but Muslim writers as well. However, contrary to the majoritarian discourse, some writers debunk and subvert these stereotypes linked to Islam, offering an alternative picture of Muslims in a more nuanced way to challenge the didactics of Western superiority. To the latter scholarship belongs Sudanese-British writer Leila Aboulela and second-generation immigrant author of mixed descent Shelina Zahra Janmohamed whose writings offer a more nuanced version of Muslim women’s writing. This article assesses the engagement of freedom and agency in Aboulela’s novel Minaret (2005) and Janmohamed’s chick-lit memoir Love in a Headscarf (2009). Contrary to the prevalent discourses on Islam and Muslims these narratives posit a resistance to conforming to the Western modes of thought and conventions. This article articulates how immigrant Muslim women deny stereotypes regarding them through the choices they make. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the postcolonial critique of Eurocentrism, the epistemological foundations of sociology and the legacies of classical sociologists have certainly become controversial. Postcolonial critiques of sociology's Eurocentrism have denounced the "parochial" nature and limitations of the theoretical contributions left by Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, the reductive and stereotyping orientation of the "primitivist" and/or "orientalist" representations of non-Western peoples that can be identified in their work, and the incomplete and misleading accounts of the Western processes of modernization that we have inherited from them, which fail to fully address and satisfactorily account for the realities of modern Western forms of colonialism and imperialism. However, the nature and consequences of Durkheim's specific sociological Eurocentrism raise opposing views within postcolonialism. This article aims to evaluate the pertinence of the divergent and sometimes contradictory postcolonial appraisals of Durkheim's Eurocentrism by focusing particularly on the controversies generated by his sociological approach to religion. Placing Durkheim's sociological project within both the academic field and the socio-political context in which it took shape, this article highlights the shifting relevance and the implications of his evolving sociological approach to this object of study in his science of morals. Although it is not exempt from inconsistencies and Eurocentric assumptions, Durkheim's sociological approach to religion leaves an invaluable legacy for a non-dualistic sociological understanding of the rituals through which humans (re)create their social identities and their forms of belonging and solidarity. In line with the priorities of some postcolonial agendas, it can fully reveal its explanatory potential in the sociological investigation of modern and contemporary interethnic and racial conflicts and forms of colonialism and neo-colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) are characterised by their special relationships with their traditional lands and the natural world, which are essential to their physical and cultural survival, identity, knowledge, and spirituality. They are custodians of the land; however, often made invisible and voiceless in the face of irreversible destruction caused by human-induced planetary change. This Special Issue (SI) is inspired by the stories, worldviews, knowledge systems, and lived experiences of IPLCs worldwide. Based on the compounded impacts of global climate change and other human-induced crises on IPLCs' ancestral lands, contributors to this SI recognise that the world has entered the Anthropocene – the epoch of human-induced planetary change. While human activities are considered geologically recent, they have profoundly impacted the planet. The contributors challenge the discourse of the Anthropocene, not only because it takes humanity as the prime reference point in understanding the world but also because of its reproduction of the onto-epistemological foundations of Eurocentric philosophy, which underpins colonialism and racial capitalism. This SI opens up space for historically marginalised IPLCs' cosmologies, which embody their holistic, spiritually and physically interconnected, interdependent, and reciprocal relationships with land, the natural world, and non-human beings. It expands and pluralises the discourse of the Anthropocene through the concept of posthumanism to recognise alternative knowledge systems that decentre humanity's dominant position in understanding the world. IPLCs' onto-epistemologies align with posthuman or more-than-human ways of knowing, being, and doing, which embody their reciprocal relationships with land, non-human beings, and the natural world that are all deemed as living entities with agency. IPLCs' voices urge us to relearn our ancestral ways of understanding and interacting with the world and reconnect to our holistic relationships with the planet Earth and its beings to ensure the continuity of nature and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages in theoretical reflection on how to transcend the imposition of Eurocentric theories onto Southern and Eastern examples. Specifically, I reflect on the examination of educational issues faced by marginalized migrant communities within Chinese contexts and explore the application of an "Asia as Method" conceptual framework to reimagine education opportunities for migrant children and community mobilization as it pertains to a politics of recognition and redistribution. The politics of location and identity shaped by Chinese society's historical and contemporary power structures highlight both the needs and potential of theoretical conceptualizations from within. The goal is not simply to replace the West/North with the East/South nor is it to generate a wholly new theoretical concept to be applicable to all contexts; instead, the task undertaken in this work is to foster historically grounded relational explanations in order for communities in previously-decentered contexts to become one another's multifaceted reference points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a decolonising geographical approach to critique the limitations of the Eurocentric model of local government democracy in Aotearoa and Tauranga Moana. Thematic analysis of media representations of the Māori ward debate and semi‐structured interviews illuminates how Māori have been marginalised from local government decision‐making. First, I illustrate the way legislation, practices and processes of local government democracy, including referenda, are mechanisms that marginalise Māori and Te Ao Māori. Second, the article highlights that the establishment of Māori wards within the local government structure is the only way to ensure dedicated representation of Māori as elected members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the article becomes to highlight a new epistemology of knowledge as the guiding thread of the creative process of the samba school parade in 2019 at Estação Primeira de Mangueira. Historically, knowledge stru ctured from a bias of westernized thinking was intertwined in Brazilian cultural manifestations such as the carnival phenomenon. The narrative that the samba school parades portrayed in their presentation, reinforced the myths and misconceptions that the Eurocentric historiography systematized for many years, relativizing and softening problematic historical episodes, such as the invasion and consequently the colonization, slavery and genocide of the real owners of these lands, the original peoples. In order to rethink and rewrite traditional Brazilian historiography, the decolonial movement emerges as an epistemological rupture in order to highlight the existence and resistance of blacks and indigenous peoples in the past and present. In the parade "Historias para ninar gente grande" at Estaçao Primeira de Mangueira, the decolonial episteme is incorporated into the parade, carrying out a historical reparation towards indigenous peoples, blacks and other social groups who were victims of colonization and coloniality, becoming in this parade the true heroes and protagonists of the history of Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper is the hypotheses and theories purposed at explaining the divergence between Europe and the world, which emerged with global imperialism in the last five hundred years and became evident with the Industrial Revolution. This subject was revived with Kenneth Pomeranz's work The Great Divergence, published in 2000, and continued under the title The Great Divergence. In this paper, major studies on the subject are presented and a general evaluation is made in the conclusion section. Hypotheses on the subject are discussed in this article by classifying them under the headings of natural factors and cultural-institutional factors. It cannot be said that the subject of the Great Divergence, for which hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been produced, has been able to reach a satisfactory explanation. For this, first of all, the disconnection between economic history and economic theory must be eliminated. However, it is also imperative to abandon Eurocentric explanations that have permeated the social sciences. An important problem seen in some of the hypotheses on the subject is that the conditions for falsification are not determined. This situation reduces the scientific value of the relevant studies by eliminating testability. One-dimensional or reductionist explanations do not allow the phenomenon to be understood. Therefore, a satisfactory explanation must take into account natural and cultural factors together. The multitude of factors that led to the Great Divergence have dragged the issue into an inextricable confusion. Therefore, it is necessary to determine a hierarchy or degree of importance among the factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end of the Second World War and the Allied occupation of Iran came with a relaxation of censorship laws in the country. This in turn permitted the revival of an active Jewish press after a lull of almost two decades. One of the main publications of this period, 'Alam-e Yahud (The Jewish world), frequently translated prose and literary texts for the benefit of its readers, including a great deal of Hebrew poetry. Translations were designed to encourage a global Jewish, literary, and political modernity (on both a Zionist and domestic Iranian plane) and to promote a participation within these projects by the periodical's readers.This essay analyses these literary translations and adaptations, demonstrating Iranian Jewish writers' active engagement with Hebrew literary works, shifting and molding them for their own context and ideals. It begins with an examination of the periodical's wider translation project and its function as a political and cultural bridge during a period of change. It moves on to examine the "foreignness" of authors including Haim Nahman Bialik, and Bialik's normative cachet as an Ashkenazi/European and later Palestine-based writer. The essay proceeds to analyze other Hebrew-language contemporaries as spurs for linguistic and national renewal in both Hebrew and Persian, and concludes by reading original popular and belletristic poetry in Persian by Iranian Jews published in the periodical as a signifier of distinctiveness away from these sometimes-Eurocentric translated models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioarchaeology, as a subdiscipline, has begun confronting its colonial origins and discussing how to incorporate stakeholders and ethically move forward. Here, we frame this discussion within the context of Sudan and Ancient Nubia. We argue that first we must acknowledge the sordid history of the discipline and then actively take steps to dismantle continuing systems of racism, sexism, and western-centered biases. We begin by discussing the history of the excavation, analysis, and treatment of human skeletal remains from early excavations through to current projects. We then turn to an examination of how we can further decolonize bioarchaeology in Sudan. This will certainly involve working closely with local communities and the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, as well as a reconsideration of decision-making processes. We are working towards a best care practices document, detailing guidelines for the curation and analysis of human skeletal remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I historicize decolonial theories within the context of epistemic contestations and knowledge production in Africa. I offer a critical appraisal of decolonization as simulated within Western academic institutions and argue that the current tempo of decolonization movements is by no means an accident of history; it is, in fact, a residual narrative of colonial epistemology. I offer internal critique and discuss the limitations of decolonization as an intellectual strategy, before addressing how Western academics have appropriated the discourse in a manner fitting an intellectual crusade. The decolonial scholar is, at the same time, perpetuating the mandate of colonial epistemology by substituting coloniality with subjective displacement. Finally, I suggest a modest proposal for adopting a new framework that admits the epistemic virtues of decolonization while eschewing its limitations and internal contradictions. My argument is that decolonization studies, as understood in contemporary African philosophy, has remained afflicted with the same disease it seeks to cure by (i) uncritical affiliation with historical generalizations, (ii) failure to recognize that history is no location of innocence and (iii) recolonization of non-Western ontologies through epistemic imperialism and network legitimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, Europe announced the New European Bauhaus (NEB). While the initiative intends to achieve EU sustainability goals, framing it under the name of the Bauhaus brings various challenges and issues to the fore. In this article, we analyze the critiques of the original Bauhaus and the NEB to understand the challenges that the NEB lighthouse project Bauhaus of the Seas Sails (BoSS) inherits by adhering to the Bauhaus vision and name. We unveil the problematic dynamics of Eurocentric modernity's myths of universalism and better living through technology and on the Bauhaus's and NEB's position in global power structures. Instead of assuming a tabula rasa approach and replicating problematic structures unknowingly, we bring these three aspects to BoSS to find questions as orientation points to help steer away from problematic aspects inherited by reanimating the Bauhaus name and its legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, Steven Engler and Mark Q. Gardiner propose a new way of classifying esotericism using a taxonomy borrowed from biology. They define esotericism based on a set of properties that are ranked according to their significance and how they relate to each other. The authors aim to synthesize existing definitions of esotericism into a consensual meta-definition, using scholarly consensus as the criterion for validity. However, the authors' approach reflects a conventional understanding of semantic meaning analysis and perpetuates a Western Eurocentric perspective. They also fail to address the issue of Eurocentrism and overlook recent attempts to move beyond it. [Extracted from the article]

Recent research has drawn attention to the culture of whiteness and Eurocentrism within post-secondary kinesiology and physical education programs. By speaking with eighteen Chinese-Canadian undergraduate students, this case study examines how Eurocentrism manifests in an undergraduate kinesiology program at a western Canadian university. We found that a subtle, yet pervasive, center–margin framework was woven throughout the teaching and research culture of the program. This binary served to legitimize Western approaches to knowing and doing health and physical activity, while marginalizing – if not excluding altogether – non-Western knowledge systems. As one possible pathway for disrupting this knowledge/power hierarchy within kinesiology, we propose building opportunities for epistemic interculturalism throughout the curriculum. We maintain that a first step towards fostering intercultural opportunities is understanding the conditions of possibility that may enable or constrain non-coercive dialogical spaces. To this end, we aspire to expose the complex and subtle everyday processes through which the hegemony of the Western tradition is reproduced, which we suggest is the most significant contribution of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the categories of variegated social formations and structural historical heterogeneity, which have been developed from Latin American Marxism as a theoretical attempt that aims to account for the complexity of the debates around historical time. For this, the work of René Zavaleta Mercado (Bolivia) and Aníbal Quijano (Peru) is analyzed, revealing their connections and divergences. It is concluded that there are important meeting points, but also disagreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a historical settler and colonizer in Asia, yet a state not colonized by European countries, Japan and its colonial history seem to have been left out from the debates on public history as a decolonizing process, due to the field having arguably been Eurocentric. This article interrogates the extent to which public history could serve as a vehicle to decolonize the history-making process in Japan and demonstrates the challenges of decolonizing through public history within Japan's national framework due to nationalistic or patriotic silencing and censorship. Such nationalistic public history is rooted in Japan's narratives of victimhood fostered in its course of history, including the 'inferior' position against the West or the experience of the atomic bombs. Moreover, Japan's historical division between the internal and external colonies as well as its nationalistic, defensive attitude towards the history of external colonialism have played significant roles in burying its settler colonial past. To include narratives about the internal and external colonial victims, I argue that both Eurocentric decolonization and academia-centered public history in Japan need to be, in themselves, decolonized so that they provide more nuanced approaches to Japan's colonial past. Furthermore, given that narratives of the colonial past in national history projects can be silenced under nationalistic victimhood, this article suggests that transnational collaborative public history could disconnect historical narratives from nationalistic discourses of victimhood, gathering more sympathy beyond Japan and supporting efforts towards decolonization. The overall article eventually contributes to decolonizing the Eurocentric debates on 'decolonization through public history.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies on precarity among gig workers has turned away from labour process factors to explore the role of the wider social, cultural and institutional environment. Existing western-centred studies in this aspect argue that platforms reproduce racialised and gendered hierarchies to leverage control over vulnerable populations. This study extends this literature by focusing on the migration factor in a non-western context. Using the case of Didi, drawing on ethnographic and interview data, it is argued that migrant drivers' high tolerance for platform precarity should be understood as an imposed position, for they are actually trapped in the platform by China's state-led, tech-driven economic restructuring project, through a new mode of migrant labour differentiation comprising three factors – changes in the labour market, hegemonic gender norms and the reformed hukou system. It thus enriches our understanding of worker precarity in the gig economy by highlighting the impact of migration and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very little is known about how Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara describe and explain mental health from their own perspectives without resorting to Western frameworks. This study used a social contextual research approach to describe how Anangu talk about behaviours that are called "mental illness" in Western contexts, their explanations about the contexts they believe shape these behaviours, and how Anangu support people who exhibit them. Seven senior Anangu were repeat interviewed between 1–2 hours by an Anangu researcher for a combined total time of 31 hours in a "yarning" conversational approach. Interviews were analysed using a thematic analysis approach to explore the contextual features giving rise to mental health behaviours. Results indicated that in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands there are complex interactions between fundamental ancient beliefs of cultural processes and the changing Western influences since colonisation, and examples are given of each of these. The same looking Western behaviours of "mental health" could arise from alternative traditional contexts. This research fills a gap and adds to the very small amount of Anangu mental health literature by providing an extensive overview of the mental health behaviours from the perspectives of Anangu themselves. It also shows how there can be gaps in research done without Indigenous researchers onboard. What is already known about this topic: Indigenous descriptions and explanations for the behaviours of 'mental health' differ from western versions. Previous research has usually not involved Indigenous researchers. Previous research often does not let Indigenous peoples provide context for their descriptions and explanations. What this topic adds: Anangu elders added rich contexts to their descriptions and explanations for the behaviours of 'mental health' rather than generalizations. Having an Anangu researcher vastly improved the details given compared to a previous research study that did not. Anangu elders kept western and Anangu contexts separate even with behaviours that superficially looked the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A core tenet of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an understanding of systemic racism as a defining and constitutive feature of the Eurocentric modern order. In contrast to this foundational insight, discussions in hegemonic social psychology tend to approach racism in a manner—specifically, as prejudice and individual bias—that abstracts the topic from social and historical context. We consider this proposition via an analysis of standard textbooks for undergraduate courses in social psychology. Our review reveals that standard textbooks do not include racism, per se, as a topic of investigation; instead, they tend to consider racism‐relevant topics as specific cases of supposedly more basic (and therefore more general) processes of cognition or affect. We conclude the article by drawing on textbooks from South African settings and perspectives of decolonial theory (i.e., examples of social psychologies Other‐wise) as resources to re‐think hegemonic social psychology in directions that resonate more clearly with a CRT emphasis on the systematicity of racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rare consensus points to the question of normativity, with an inclination towards the Eurocentric Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, which seems to have been central to Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS). Given the universality of knowledge exerting pressure on scholars to conform with traditional theoretical perspectives, terrorism studies pose inequality from Eurocentricity emerging in "the battle for hearts and minds" research. Some of these studies fall to the allure of connivance with the progressively "authoritarian demands of Western, liberal state and media practice". Consequently, terrorism research risks being dominated by ethical and logical blindness within established research formations. In Africa, for example, some CTS scholars are subdued to cynically use their Africanity to authenticate the neo-colonial and neo-liberal agenda in terrorism research. This article explores the reimaging of subjugated knowledge through decolonisation of methods in CTS. Rooting for cognitive justice and adequate space for alternative knowledge to imperial science, the article contests the battle for Africa's hearts and minds as a failed process that needs transformation. Consequently, this work is a contribution to epistemological debate between the global North and South, and the subsequent theoretical contestations in CTS. We argue for hybridity by re-constructing alternative frameworks of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst China's aid and development model has been traditionally understood as divergent from the dominant post‐1945 liberal development model, scholars are also increasingly exploring convergence between features of the two development models. Recently, scholars from a range of disciplines including development studies, development geography and international (business, environment and legal) studies have explored a process whereby China's Belt and Road Initiative and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals converge ('BRI‐SDG integration'). This paper brings these multidisciplinary strands of scholarship together and places them in dialogue with social sciences convergence theory to understand how BRI‐SDG integration aligns with or challenges previous conceptualisations of Chinese‐dominant development convergence. The paper first demonstrates that BRI‐SDG integration proposes a novel and deliberate convergence process ‐ which the paper names 'complementary convergence'. However, BRI‐SDG integration also underscores the need for more multidirectional frameworks that reject Eurocentricity for evaluating the contemporary Chinese‐dominant relationship, and an enhanced focus on how China is influencing dominant development institutions. Finally, BRI‐SDG integration reiterates the methodological difficulties of delineating between 'development models' in an increasingly interrelated global governance of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical work on objectified body consciousness, comprised of body surveillance and body shame, proposes several negative sequelae of holding an objectified view of the self (i.e., valuing the body primarily for its attractiveness to others). Few studies have examined associations between objectified body consciousness and academic beliefs and strategies among adolescent girls, especially girls of color. In the present study, we investigated a conceptual model whereby exposure to Eurocentric appearance norms through TV consumption is related to body surveillance and body shame which, in turn, are related to academic beliefs and strategies among a racially diverse sample of United States girls. Participants were 650 self-identified Asian American/Pacific Islander, Black, and White adolescent girls (M age = 15.45, SD age = 1.50). Higher Eurocentric appearance norms exposure was associated with higher body shame which, in turn, was associated with maladaptive academic beliefs and strategies for all three groups of girls. In contrast, higher Eurocentric appearance norms exposure was associated with higher body surveillance and just one academic belief, and in White girls only. Future work should continue to examine these associations among adolescent girls of color. In addition, we encourage educators to include body image content in media literacy curricula as a means of disrupting associations between Eurocentric appearance norms, body shame, and academic functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In asking whether China's growing economic power and international economic engagement increases or reduces the highly constrained industrial policy space associated with the contemporary neoliberal mode of regulation of international economic relations, it is argued that Chinese finance enlarges the development policy space as it significantly helps fill infrastructure gaps, while focusing on big clusters of projects in the energy, transport and industry sectors. In addition, it provides finance free of the neoliberal conditionalities attached to Western-centred multilateral and private finance. Regarding trade and investment relations, Chinese agreements are shallow and grant national states the upper hand in relation to behind-border industrial policy measures in striking contrast to core countries' neoliberal trade and investment agreements. Considerable emphasis is placed on the responsibility of the Global South to adopt measures enabling itself to seize the development opportunities derived from China's internationalisation approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Eurocentric Globalization of Football (EGF), that is, the concentration of capital, broadcasts, players and coaches from around the world in the most powerful football leagues in Europe. It presents a historical analysis based on statistics and an ethnographic approach to three groups of fans of European clubs in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. It is concluded that EGF is defined by an unequal international division of labour that mainly benefits the European clubs and contribute to the reproduction of a kind of (neo)colonial world system. In Latin America, transnational fans are often seen as mere imitators of the so-called 'first world' lifestyles and traitors of the national culture. On the contrary, transnational fans conceive the EGF as an opportunity to transit freely through different cultural references, distinguish themselves socially, and build trans-scale identities that creatively challenge traditional ways of building identity in the globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Missionaries played a significant role as conveyors of transcultural exchanges between Europe and China. The Basel Mission, one of the major German-speaking mission agency to China which worked among the Hakka people in the Canton Province, was a leading actor in transcultural exchanges. Thus, Basel missionaries in China sent artifacts regularly to their homeland as part of the transcultural exchanges between China and Europe in the 19th Century. Using diverse approaches including museums and traveling exhibitions, missionaries transmitted Chinese culture to the public in German-speaking Europe not only to win support for its mission enterprise but also to expose the people to exotic Chinese culture. How did the mission agency organize Chinese exhibits to transmit Chinese culture? What was the image of Chinese culture that the Basel Mission constructed in German-speaking Europe? This article investigates these questions through material archival sources drawn from the Basel Mission Archives and Chinese artifacts conserved at the Museum of Cultures in Basel. The article concludes by arguing that the Basel missionaries constructed an image of a “heathen civilization” in German-speaking Europe. Yet on the other hand, the exhibitions provided a limited window for the public to open their horizons and shape their Eurocentrism identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religions of South and East Asia resist Eurocentric interpretations, such as the so-called World Religion Paradigm. However, they are subjected in various ways to hetero- and auto-orientalist representations that respond to Western ideals and expectations. This article analyzes how Italian Catholic teachers use online representations of East Asian religions in their lessons to teach these traditions. The aim is to shed light on the interplay, facilitated by online environments, between contemporary processes of Eurocentric and Orientalist interpretation and the educational and confessional motivations of confessional religious education teachers. The result of the analysis indicates that these factors concur to reinforce misleading representations, which contradicts the intercultural aims proclaimed by teachers and other Teaching of Catholic Religion stakeholders. Nevertheless, this article also individuates those elements that could be fruitfully framed in an academic study-of-religions perspective and suggests a modality of cooperation between Catholic Religion teachers and scholars of religions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coloniality and Eurocentrism are entrenched in the field of international justice, reproducing a harmful dominant culture within international justice non-governmental organizations ('IJ NGOs') that influences how practitioners behave, interact with each other, and respond to violence and harm. The article argues that this dominant culture prioritizes punitive approaches to violence over more life-affirming forms of justice and accountability that centre healing and community. Drawing on experiences and conceptual frameworks illustrating dominant oppressive global systems and corresponding social behaviours, the authors critically examine the harms caused by the dominant culture that prevents authentic engagement with a community-led vision of systemic justice that seeks to transform the systems of oppression at the root of violence. Writing from the vantage point of their collective process of co-learning and reorientation and drawing on critical and feminist thought and praxes — including embodiment, abolition, and transformative justice — the authors offer potential ideas and practices that could contribute towards a counterculture in international justice. The article provides initial reflections on a practical framework that could reorient international justice communities of practice towards life-affirming and transformative approaches to justice that centre community-building, collective care, and solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of the category of "amefricanidade" as a methodology for analyzing the productions of black authors in Latin America. The researchers argue that universities were established following Eurocentric guidelines, excluding literary productions and non-Western knowledge. The author highlights the importance of rethinking academic practices and including black authors in literature and Hispanic-American culture disciplines. The proposal of the term "amefricanos" as a political and cultural category that surpasses territorial, linguistic, and ideological limitations is discussed, allowing for a deep understanding of America as a whole. The text analyzes two works of poetry by black authors in the Pampean region of South America, exploring themes such as racism and African matrix traditions. The circulation of this knowledge in the academic environment is fundamental for a more complete interpretation of literature. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the need to decolonize anthropology and revise its methodology, specifically ethnography. The Eurocentric approach of anthropology is criticized and participatory research is proposed as an alternative. The importance of collaborative ethnography is highlighted and different works and proposals in this field are mentioned. Additionally, the role of political symbolism in social life is analyzed, such as the use of the Cuban flag and Mapuche flags in Chile. [Extracted from the article]

This paper attempts to develop a phenomenological account of community which would not be pervaded by Eurocentric assumptions. Such Eurocentrism is what Husserl's phenomenological framework has been accused of. I first reconstruct Husserl's phenomenology of community in his late transcendental phenomenology by examining the Vienna Lecture. I show that Husserl's Eurocentrism is encapsulated in his account of corporeity, which simultaneously recognizes the importance of corporeity and its necessary overcoming in theoria , which originates in the European philosopher. I then argue that Merleau-Ponty, through his rigorously embodied phenomenology, can offer a non-Eurocentric phenomenology of community. Elaborating on the Husserlian insight of corporeity, notably the perceptual experience and the écart at stake in the encounter with other bodies, allows Merleau-Ponty's ontology of the flesh to recast community from and with the body as an open, situated, and non-archeo-teleological structure, allowing phenomenology to reimagine inter-cultural encounters away from tropes of European exemplarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the intellectual legacy of Ignacio Ellacuría, a prominent philosopher and theologian known for his contributions to liberation theology and his critique of Eurocentrism. Despite its importance, his work has not yet been sufficiently explored and disseminated. The article presents a dossier that contains seven essays on the notion of historical reality in Ellacuría's work, exploring his ethical approach and his commitment to justice. It also analyzes the influence of Xavier Zubiri's philosophy on Ellacuría's thinking, as well as his debate with Joseph Ratzinger and Michael Novak on liberation theology. Overall, the importance and relevance of Ellacuría's thinking in the current historical reality are highlighted. [Extracted from the article]