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This article shows that longstanding connections established through inclusion in the British Empire were maintained in significant ways after individual countries became independent, but remained within the Commonwealth. Although Britain declined as an international power, and largely lost its empire, it reveals ongoing British soft-power in academic cultures. The article provides a new scholarly analysis, moving away from presumptions about the anglicised university ideal in the Global South. How did British ideas transfer themselves to former colonial universities? Who was involved in the process? To answer to these questions, this research focuses on the transnational activities of the Inter-University Council, the University of London and African and Caribbean universities during the late and post-colonial eras. Liberal, elite and residential education, a balance of teaching and research schemes were combined; institutional autonomy was a further added important elements in the classic British university cultures. However, the notion of Britain’s institutional autonomy differed in colonial universities, but functioned well for protecting their academic freedom. The circulation of British ideas for universities was a means of anglicising overseas universities at the end of empire. Britain succeeded in keeping alive the bonds of the Commonwealth universities across the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between Portugal and South Africa significantly shaped the regional politics of twentieth-century southern Africa. Notably, Exercise Alcora, the military alliance between Rhodesia, Portugal, and South Africa, is a well-documented aspect of Cold War history that has recently garnered increased scholarly attention. The availability of previously classified materials has revealed a more complex and nuanced account of the collaboration between Portugal and South Africa, whose early partnership laid the foundation for a broader supranational alliance in the region. This research delves into the genesis and evolution of South African–Portuguese ties, scrutinising the progressively strengthening connections from the 1950s to the early 1960s. It posits that, before the late 1940s, no substantial or well-defined relations existed between Portugal and South Africa. Establishing these ties was neither straightforward nor effortless; instead, it was a multifaceted and labour-intensive process influenced by critical factors. Both nations were united by shared ideological tenets rooted in nationalism. They concurrently experienced a waning of ties with democratic powers, notably Britain and the United States. Moreover, the apparent indifference of these Western states to the communist threat in Africa catalysed closer bonds between Lisbon and Pretoria, marking a significant shift in their geopolitical alignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of music diversity is colonialized. Its model is impotent to disrupt the Western canon. On the contrary, the practice has opened the door to sonic materialization and trafficking that has become indicative of the encounter between classical music and other music traditions in higher education. The Global South has become the mining area, while Western institutions “explore” indigenous music to repair the status quo. The thesis of this article is that the current Western curricular approach to music diversity is a reincarnation of the Western hegemony. I adapted a decolonial lens to examine the premises of diversity practice, questioning its model and unmasking its logic. I will interrogate the unbalanced relationship or what Quijano and Mignolo call the “matrix of power.” In doing so, I introduced a conceptual tool - canonity, which is defined and examined alongside the concept of diversity. I argue that diversity represents the other side of canonity, just as coloniality and modernity/rationality are two sides of the same coin. This coinage suggests that musical canonity/diversity is indicative and constitutive of coloniality/modernity. Thus, the article calls for the decanonisation of the epistemic center, delinking from the trajectory of modernity/rationality and shifting the geography of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to explore theoretical and practical considerations for decolonizing academic integrity. I explore values associated with academic integrity, including both Western and Indigenous perspectives. I draw from scholarship on decolonizing research methods and practices, contemplating the transferability to academic integrity practices and policies. Synthesizing key concepts from the literature, I theorize strategies for decolonizing academic and research integrity in broad terms, focusing on four principles, which can translate into concrete actions: (a) centering marginalized voices and perspectives in knowledge production; (b) recognizing the interconnectedness of knowledge and the importance of contextualization; (c) resisting the perpetuation of historical oppression in academic integrity, and (d) knowledge caretaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe aim of this article is to discuss the neoliberal project as a colonial determinant of the environmental policy in Brazil since 1972. The 1972 Stockholm Conference is used as a milestone for analysis. The results show that, since the military regime in the 1970s and through successive elected governments, whether right- or left-wing, federal policies have consistently aimed to boost the country’s economic growth. Even the few socio-environmental advances identified during the first administrations of the Labour Party (2003–2010) resulted from processes focused on the ‘deterritorialisation’ of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities. The ultra-liberal project adopted by the Bolsonaro administration (2019–2022) accelerated these processes and promoted an aggressive denialist, anti-environmental and anti-Indigenous agenda. Given the current political scenario (Lula administration 2023–2026), this study makes the following main contributions: it offers a new orientation for the environmental and Indigenous agendas developed by the progressive sector in Brazil and advocates for a science orientated towards contributing to a new environmental and Indigenous agenda in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the emerging literature on decolonial research capacity-sharing (the process of strengthening individual/organisational capacity to shape research agendas, assess, design, produce, disseminate, and apply evidence). It provides a discussion of a participatory research capacity-sharing initiative led by Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), which was aimed at practitioners, activists, and researchers, with valuable experience as professionals and activists but little to no prior research experience, from various parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. While existing literature (including publications on decolonial research capacity-sharing) often assumes that research capacity-sharing is led by and aimed at academics, our article reflects on the question of how decolonial research capacity-sharing can be implemented in interventions led by and aimed at non-academics. It therefore makes an important contribution to existing literature on research capacity-sharing, pointing to the important role practitioners, activists, and community members can play, especially in interventions informed by decolonial principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of Gypsy/Travellers in Scottish museums using a decolonial perspective. Focusing on a case study of Jamie Macpherson's fiddle and its re-interpretation at the Clan Macpherson Museum in 2021, this article explores the value of using decolonial ideas to frame and interpret Scottish Gypsy/Traveller experience. It argues that, both historically and in the present, Scottish Gypsy/Travellers have been subject to racism and discrimination that are the product of colonialism and its continuing legacies. This theoretical framework of coloniality informed a collaborative project to re-interpret Jamie Macpherson's fiddle at the Clan Macpherson Museum, where the authors worked with activists and members of the Gypsy/Traveller community. The focal point of this re-interpretation was a piece of creative writing by Maggie McPhee, a Scottish Traveller, whose 'Heartbreak Through Her Eyes' re-imagined the story of Jamie Macpherson – hanged at Banff in 1700 for being an 'Egiptian' (Gypsy) – from the perspective of his mother. Centering the experience of both women and Gypsy/Travellers, Maggie McPhee's story demonstrated different ways of knowing the past. Drawing on recent feminist work in South America on the epistemologies of the South, we argue that storytelling such as Maggie's can become an act of decolonial resistance – a form of 'poetic knowledge' that can be an important part of broader efforts to decolonise museums. The enduring coloniality of anti-Gypsy/Traveller racism is challenged by the powerful and beautiful words of Maggie McPhee, centring the Gypsy/Traveller voice in ways that change our understanding of the past and fight racism in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks how Gavin Maxwell, famed Scottish nature-writer and otter-keeper, author of Ring of Bright Water, emerged from a background of European colonialist adventure-writing to become a clandestine agent for the FLN Algerian independence movement in 1961, and then, in The Rocks Remain (1963) and Lords of the Atlas (1966), to advance a positive portrait of the newly independent Moroccan monarchy and, in the latter work, a condemnation of French colonialism. Using published writings and unpublished archival documents, this article examines Maxwell's career as a travel writer in Iraq, Morocco, and Algeria, in the context of recent historiography on the global public relations networking of Moroccan and Algerian anticolonial movements. Through his relationships with British journalist-activist Margaret Pope and the Moroccan monarchy's press services head and Minister of Information and Tourism, Ahmed Alaoui, Maxwell became, if only briefly and partially, a part of North African anti-imperialist outreach networks developed to cultivate global public opinion. In Maxwell's case, his recruitment as a literary supporter was more of a success for the Moroccan monarchy than for the Algerian FLN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper aims to discuss how to address the dangers emerging from scholars' proclamations of positionality and identity in debates on decolonisation in comparative education. The approach proposed engages with two ideas that were central to the work of French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and were further developed by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe: dis-enclosure and being-in-common. The author argues that these two ideas offer an alternative ontology of decolonisation that challenges the binary logic of identitarian thinking (e.g. western/non-western; white/non-white) in which proclamations of positionality and identity may often be rooted. This argument highlights the theoretical and political advantages of adopting a non-identitarian perspective for decolonisation debates in comparative education. The paper concludes with considering the implications of this alternative ontology of decolonisation in comparative education, with a specific focus on how scholars can foreground a shared responsibility for 'reparative futures' in research, writing, and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2017–2019 I was counsel representing the families in a coronial inquest which looked at Aboriginal youth deaths in the Kimberley region of Australia with a particular regard to self-harm. A coronial inquest is a judicial proceeding that investigates unexplained deaths, unusual deaths, or deaths in state custody. In this paper I consider the epistemic violence my clients experienced, and I particularly examine the potential for affect and relationality to create connectors between epistemes in the hope of a more emancipatory conception of justice. I draw on Audre Lorde's corpus as one that is worthy of serious regard in critical legal studies and useful in my work. In particular, I turn my gaze inwards and draw on Audre Lorde's creation of biomythography as a method for legal writing and legal practice, to offer an account of my role in the Inquest. Biomythography is a form of writing which grounds subjective individual and collective experience, and its interrelationship with history and myth to centre experiences of justice and injustice. In using this methodology, I consider ways the civil law, through its interpretive function and authority in the coronial jurisdiction, oppresses First Nations Australians. Through writing my biomythography I show that the Coroner's fact finding role arrives at truth in a way inherently embedded in Western knowledge systems and I regard the Coroner's truth determining function as violent. Finally, I consider the potential of affect as a connector between epistemes to create emancipatory possibilities for justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consequent to colonial policies that restricted women's participation in public space, the Nigerian woman of the colonial era experienced strenuous socio-political and economic marginalisation/oppression. This marginalisation spurred many of the affected women into acts of subtle and overt resistance. However, historical narratives have typically downplayed narratives portraying women's agency as an integral and essential part of the anti-colonial resistance. Contemporary efforts at redressing this imbalance have resulted in the identification of women activists including Funmilayo (Ransome) Anikulapo-Kuti (FRK), Margaret Ekpo and Oyinka Abayomi to mention a few. Such efforts at identifying feminists and women activists have nevertheless significantly downplayed or outrightly ignored earlier generations of women activists whose successful activisms paved way for this group of identified activists. This study, therefore, sets out to interrogate the socio-economic and political philosophy of Alimotu Pelewura, an unlettered activist and the leader of the first mass-based women's interest group in colonial South-west Nigeria. Utilising historical and analytical research methods, it presents an exposition of Pelewura's economic, social and political activities and subjects such to critical analysis, with a final aim of distilling her socio-political and economic philosophies from these activities, thus, presenting Pelewura's philosophy as an African feminist narrative towards decolonisation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reveals the tactic of purification as a form of neo-colonial marginalisation present in contemporary development strategies on Indigenous lands. The research is based on my fieldwork study of exclusive tactics in a contemporary development conflict on Indigenous lands: the Arctic Railway project in Sápmi, in Northern Europe. The tactic of purification works through the selective use of opposites in excluding Indigeneity. On the one hand, 'pure' Indigeneity is an excuse for proponents of extractive development projects to exclude Indigenous knowledge and identities as 'too Indigenous' according to modern standards, denouncing them as 'backward', 'only culture', 'not profitable', or 'without knowledge'. Yet, simultaneously, a resemblance to profitable livelihood practices, beyond culture, the use of several knowledge systems, and multi-ethnicity in communities, is deemed 'too modern', therefore 'not pure enough', thus invalidating Indigeneity. Building on classification systems introduced during colonialism, settler societies employ purification as a tactic to deny Indigenous peoples their right to decolonisation projects, and strengthen their control of Indigenous lands. The purification tactic thereby enables the expansion of the modern-colonial capitalist world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article demonstrates an important case of transnational activist influence from the Global South to both Global North and other Global South contexts. While protests, slogans, strategies and demands are expressions of a specific context-bound protest culture, they have the potential to resonate globally. In this way, specific protests become a model for other social movements, although not without tension or reconfigurations of activism. In this article, we explore the transnational flow of the ideas around ‘Must Fall’, developed initially by the South African student movement. From 2015, several university-based protests in South Africa coalesced under the slogan ‘Must Fall’, most prominently #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall. This ‘Must Fall’ idea resonated transnationally in multiple contexts. However, protests using ‘Must Fall’ also drew from other resources and held different meanings across the different contexts, creating a complex transnational flow of partially connected protests across Africa, Europe, and the US. Nevertheless, the ‘Must Fall’ protests were similar in expressing a need for a radical change to rupture and overcome structures of oppression, especially those shaped by colonialism. This article analyses the Global South genesis and meaning of the ‘Must Fall’ protests and how they travelled, resonating differently in both Southern and Northern contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erica Burman’s Fanon, Education, Action: Child as Method published (Paperback) in 2019 continues to gain ground in cultural and social critique, research, policy and practice. No review so far, however, has addressed the book’s avowed and evident resonances with, and contributions to postcolonial theory/studies. This essay intends to highlight the book’s exceptional import on postcolonial critique, albeit in a selective and limited manner, given the work’s wide breadth of postcolonial themes, resources and study areas. This reviewer’s intent, I argue, can be pursued through the prism of key critical points raised by Benita Parry back in the 1980s to 1990s, on the false starts and mis-directions treaded by the burgeoning field of deconstructionist ‘colonial discourse theory.’ Fanon, Education, Action goads deconstructive critiques to be conceptually provocative and workable at the same time for resistance, change and emancipation. Fanon was a highly influential precursor of anti-colonial and liberationist critique, who is moreover engaged by Burman in ways heretofore unprecedented in Fanonian scholarship. By focusing her analytical lens on the forward-looking and decolonizing Fanon, Burman revivifies and mobilizes the postcolonial project towards policy and actionality in education, and other forms of individual and socio-political transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a further review of evaluation blogs, podcasts and webinars in the first half of 2024. It follows on from the previous 'roundup' of 2023 published in Evaluation in this year's April issue. As before, hundreds of sources have been considered, and although this review is inevitably personal and selective, I believe it captures many of the important trends and debates informing current evaluation practice. The review is organised around key trends that emerged throughout the first half of the year, some of which continued and evolved from last year. It begins by considering ongoing debates about artificial intelligence and indigenous evaluation, before identifying further topics which have garnered particular attention so far in 2024. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space and place were the objects of colonial domination, but the transformation of minds – through language, education and more – was where colonialism also shaped subjectivities. For Frantz Fanon, understanding the relationship between the colonial conditions in which one is situated, and the interiorised effects of these conditions, was a psycho-political problem of immediate relevance to anti-colonial struggles. Putting into conversation Fanon scholarship that helps bring into view this relationality, this essay argues that his thinking on the self as a material phenomenon, constituted and re-constituted in dialectical relation to the world, rests on three broad aspects: historicity, embodiment, and creative action. Sustaining fault lines in the experiential effects of colonialism, these can foster conditions of transformation in people's ways of relating to themselves and to one another – the reconstituting of their subjectivities – in contextually determined ways. Understood through these characteristics, Fanon's conceptualisation of subjectivity advances routes of 'becoming' despite and out of colonialism. As such, I propose that even though his self–world dialectic does not look to circumscribe the outcomes of these transformations, it decisively locates the remaking of selves within confrontations with the world that pursue the liberation of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the global public health discourse, involving men in maternal and neonatal health is regarded as crucial for positive outcomes in both health and development. In South Africa, health interventions designed to promote male partner involvement among low-income indigenous populations have been framed within social constructivist notions of masculinities and have produced mixed outcomes. This has necessitated calls to explore alternative approaches, including the need to decolonise men and masculinities studies in Africa. As part of one phase of formative research for a mixed-method project aimed at adapting a male involvement intervention for the context of Sesotho-speaking men and women in the Free State, we applied a multi-site case study research design and collected qualitative data using focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Verbatim-recorded transcripts were translated, transcribed, and thematically analysed with NVIVO 14. The results indicate that customary practices in pregnancy, delivery, and newborn care are not static and vary between families based on belief systems, socioeconomic status, geographical setting (peri-urban/rural), and kinship networks of care. Therefore, these practices and beliefs should be understood, affirmed, and contested within the complex African-centred material and immaterial worldviews on personhood in which they were generated, transmitted, rejected, or adopted. It is recommended that a decolonised approach to male partner involvement in this context must be cognisant of the intersections of racial and gendered power relations, contestations in beliefs and practices, the resilient effect of colonialism on indigenous gender systems, as well as contemporary global entanglements that inform North–South power relations on the best practices in maternal and newborn health in the public health sector in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European 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]

This article situates racial capitalism as a historical-theoretical framework to generate new and alternative theory on the question of Palestine. It argues that the genocidal assault on Gaza must be understood as the clearest expression of the logic of racial capitalism and the terrain upon which we must generate theory and strategy able to dismantle Zionism, colonialism and Imperialism. Many of the critiques of Zionism deploy frameworks of apartheid, understood by radicals in South Africa as a social structure reproduced by racial capitalism. It was understood that such a system could only be effectively dismantled through a national liberation project which understood race, class, capital and Imperialism as a single contradiction which must be overthrown as a totality. Similarly, earlier theorists within the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle, such as Fayez Sayegh, understood Zionist settler colonialism as an outpost of Western Imperialism. By tracing the emergence of racial capitalism within the South African anti-apartheid struggle and the similarities between the white minority regime and Zionism, this article acts as a point of departure to drawing together histories of the Black radical tradition and the Palestinian struggle in crafting radical theory relevant for our present moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems in research may provide a well-rounded understanding of health, illness, and wellbeing for Indigenous communities in colonised societies. While many researchers have used a dual approach to researching Indigenous communities in colonised societies, tensions continue to exist around the use of Indigenous and Western ways of knowing together. There are also ongoing tensions between Indigenous methodologies and ethics processes rooted in Western understandings of research. Kaupapa Māori research is an Indigenous Māori approach to research that is about being Māori, is connected to Māori philosophy, culture and knowledge, and centres priorities for Māori. Grounded theory is a Western scientific approach to produce a theory grounded in qualitative data. This paper presents a novice researcher's reflections on using kaupapa Māori research and grounded theory to explore the relational aspects of acute health care in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The research design attempts to utilise the ethics of kaupapa Māori research and the essential methods of grounded theory to develop a research approach that is robust and culturally appropriate. Conforming to conventional Western science-based research methods while endeavouring to privilege Indigenous realities is challenging and, at times, impossible. However, grounded theory can be flexible enough to adapt to the ethics of kaupapa Māori research. Research at the interface between Indigenous and Western knowledge systems presents opportunities for innovation in research design and can provide an ethical foundation for conducting research with Indigenous communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the potential, challenges, and limits of participatory, narrative and multimodal research methods as contributions to decolonising research on understanding student experiences of teaching and learning in higher education. Drawing on Fraser's social justice concepts of participatory parity, redistribution, recognition, and representation, we argue that methodologies and methods for researching students' experiences need to redress power imbalances implicit in many existing approaches. We suggest how participatory methodologies can be combined with narrative inquiry and multimodal methods where students research their own lives and contexts. We critically reflect on an international study based in South Africa with South African and UK partners involving 65 undergraduate students from rural backgrounds who participated as co-researchers over 12 months. We highlight decolonial debates in relation to participatory research, before outlining our methodological approach and interrogating the potential, limitations, and future possibilities of co-researcher methodologies for decolonising student-focused research in higher education [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual essay extends decolonisation debates to the broader context of decoloniality of praxis. It acknowledges the significance of epistemological and pedagogical decolonisation but argues that these do not fully engage with the entrenched coloniality in tourism in Africa. The essay problematises the conventional explanations for Africa's underperformance in international tourism and its erasure of Africans as tourists. It proffers pragmatic arguments for decolonising tourism in Africa, given the unprecedented decline in international tourism during the Covid-19 pandemic, the historically contradictory images of Africa, the latent demand for domestic and regional tourism, the youthful population of Africa, and the possibility of Africa-wide freedom of movement emanating from implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area. The article emphasizes the need for concomitant representivity of Africans as producers and consumers of tourism experiences from within the continent, partly facilitated through principles of subsidiarity, although potential resistance to such a pursuit is acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians are in the business of engaging with actualities but also with possibilities, thinking and experiencing what we can be, what we may discern, and what we can sense and whence we come to understandings of the past. Just as the past may entail a number of actual and possible worlds that conform to our constructions, whether indexical or evaluative, similarly the possibilities of the future are 'pluriversal', multiple, interdependent, and 'globalising'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing acknowledgement by development academics and educators of the need to decolonise the study and teaching of development, and to apply an intersectional gender lens to development issues, there has been little discussion and few examples of how this can be achieved in an online undergraduate gender and development (GAD) course. A scan of undergraduate GAD course syllabi from Canadian universities revealed an absence of intersectionality and decolonisation as concepts and approaches, minimal linkages between GAD theory and practice, and an uncritical focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this practice note, I share several approaches to centre intersectionality, promote critical and decolonial perspectives, and bridge theory and practice in a newly created online course at the University of the Fraser Valley, BC, Canada. Drawing upon themes that emerged in online discussion posts and course evaluations, I also discuss students' views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 2020, the first woman Indigenous Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, was appointed in Aotearoa New Zealand. Mahuta has reinforced the message of taking a values-based Indigenous-centred approach to foreign policy and development. She has also recognised the mana of wāhine (the unique spiritual authority of women), "not defined by western feminist thinking, but the values that have long underpinned our culture, histories and traditions". Her appointment reflects the complicated intersections of Indigeneity, colonialism, Western feminist discourse, and foreign policy in a settler-hegemonic state, and the possibilities (and constraints) for reimagined futures. How, then, can the teaching of gender and development (GAD) be attentive to these politics of settler-colonialism in Aotearoa? How can the complexities of the colonial project be reflected in GAD, and how can GAD be responsive to settler-hegemonic and Indigenous spaces? This paper will explore these questions and look at GAD's role in perpetuating or unsettling settler-colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Success in higher education relates in part to competence in the medium of instruction. But the academic literacy literature provides compelling evidence that competence in the medium of instruction is insufficient to ensure success. Crucially, students need to take on the literacy practices of the discipline or field. This study offers a thematic analysis of the mandatory support courses that have been developed at the three universities in Namibia to enhance students' chances of success. The data comprised course documents, interviews with academics, and classroom observations. In all three institutions the courses introduced to support student success were offered in an 'autonomous model'. Higher education success was seen to rest on English competence, conceptualised as the correct use of standard grammar. In making a call for better induction we also ask: how might we enable access to practices of the academy while providing space for challenging the norms and values? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African ecclesiology and development have been highly influenced by the way White Missionaries Christianised Africa. Since Africa regained its independence, progressive scholarly attention was given to the decolonisation discourse, but ecclesial mission continues to bear retrogressive marks of colonial missiology. As Christianity has grown massively in Africa, while declining in Europe and the West, missionary trajectories have changed and a need for the African Church to contribute to integral mission, especially in relation to sustainable development in underdeveloped and developing Africa, has arisen. Therefore, the African Church ought to be interdependent, self-sustaining, self-governing and self-determining, while it appreciates and relates to Western churches as equal partners of the global Church. Problematically, countless African churches are still dependent on their Western mother churches, partners and donors to facilitate local ecclesiastic, leadership and followership development programmes, to the extent that some Africans provokingly infer that the God of the Church in Africa is White. As the gospel is inclusive, having White Westerners ministering to Black African ecclesial work is inclusionary and complementary. However, the failure of Africans to balance foreign support with contextualization hinders their integral mission and contribution to African sustainable development. The Church can only be transformative and relevant if it is well contextualised. Theoretically framed under decoloniality and based on a literature review, this study finds that the Church has not contributed much towards the African socio-economic and political development. It recommends the Church decolonises its sustainability, theological education, leadership development and mission to be contextually transformative. [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]

At the core of practice for many non-Indigenous Australian social workers is learning how to work in deeply respectful, culturally appropriate ways alongside First Nations Peoples. Larrakia and Warumungu woman, and Northern Territory social work scholar, Dr Christine/Karen King’s (2011) writings provided the impetus for this inquiry. King (2011) invites social workers to critically reflect on their practice and worldviews. Responding to this invitation, 10 non-Indigenous social workers with policy, academic, and/or practice experience conducted a co-operative inquiry into the question “What have we learnt about practising social work in the Northern Territory, Australia?” We explored the uniqueness of the Northern Territory and identified three interwoven themes. The first theme grounds our practice to Place—on Country. Here, we identified the importance of engaging with the diverse histories of the Peoples we work alongside. Second, we reflected on our vulnerability as social workers and explored the limitations of our professional knowledge base for working with First Nations Peoples. The third theme relates to the importance of engaging with First Nations Peoples’ worldviews. We conclude by affirming the importance of social work practice being led by First Nations People on Country.IMPLICATIONS Social workers working in the Northern Territory alongside First Nations Peoples will benefit from engaging with vulnerability, reflexivity, and critical reflection on their values, understandings, language, and unexamined aspects of practice and cultural self.Social workers in the Northern Territory need to commit to ongoing learning and ground their practice with First Nations’ worldviews and wisdom.Social workers working in the Northern Territory alongside First Nations Peoples will benefit from engaging with vulnerability, reflexivity, and critical reflection on their values, understandings, language, and unexamined aspects of practice and cultural self.Social workers in the Northern Territory need to commit to ongoing learning and ground their practice with First Nations’ worldviews and wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research shares the beginning foundations for a practice-led process of relational sense-making centring on the Mirrul Creek on Wiradyuri Country as a case study in a decolonising and indigenising arts practice. Utilising a hybrid research methodology analogous to feeling and hearing country as research, the research utilises a critical locatedness or embodied process (a being on Country in situated cognition), a practice of toponymy (decolonising, indigenising and reinhabiting maps and archives) and producing creative works (which reflect the practicalities and findings of the processes). These all circle in iterative loops and form three strands of a weave that hold each other in meaningful tension. The programme of initial research results in several creative works that utilise a contemporary drawing practice that foregrounds the importance of thinking with country, through the cosmology of the country. The research indicates several exciting spaces for future research in making the unseen, seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, a number of sacred Tibetan ritual musical instruments fashioned from human tissue were donated to Northumbria University, England. After lengthy consultation with stakeholders, the university took the decision to accept the donation in order to store and care for these objects in a culturally respectful manner. This process involved working closely with the Tibetan diaspora in exile to manage, research and provide access in a culturally sensitive way until such time as they might be returned to their communities of origin. Framing the university's decision were current and ongoing debates within the heritage sector regarding the ethics of storing, researching and displaying human remains, especially where they belong to cultures from beyond the Global West. However, the cultural and ritual status of these objects, not to mention their geographical origin, is such that they do not fall easily into the same defined status as other historical human remains in western heritage collections. We present here ongoing work to build transparent and sensitive collections and research policies specifically around two Tibetan ritual thöd-rnga skull drums, traditionally used in the Chöd (gCod) ritual practised in Tibetan Tantric (Vajrayana) Buddhism. We situate our work within the complex discourse on caring for contested objects in the UK in the midst of the restitution and decolonisation agendas, before considering the objects themselves as material artefacts, and the ethics of caring for and researching these objects within the context of a university collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The colonial and imperialist foundations of Canadian museums have resulted in a near erasure of Black stories from the national narrative. This article documents and analyzes the participatory processes, collaborations and community rebuilding that made up the decolonial curatorial practice and museological model of Hope Meets Action: Echoes Through the Black Continuum, the story of Afro-diasporic "British Columbia" history, past, present and future. Staged at the Royal British Columbia Museum, the exhibition was, told, curated, and artistically designed by Black voices to reclaim the complicated history of stolen people on stolen lands, and the contributions of Black leaders as they echo across the centuries into the present. The exhibition choreographed the myriad community voices who shaped it. Black activism, questions of Black identity, commentary on the Black spectacle, Black bodies, and Black women, in particular, were set against the white-centring colonial walls of this provincial museum, thus creating an experiential space to challenge the myth of "museum neutrality," assert the rights to self-defined Black presence. and strain the line between performance and presentation. This article documents the processes, lessons learned, and insights to encourage the difficult work of Black activism, resistance, and transformation in museums and Black performance spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 2023 article in this journal, Esther and Michael Fitzpatrick wrote that "complicated are those diaspora people who yearn to claim 'Irishness' in their places as something distinct from colonial settlers". An Irish identity seems to offer something unique in these contexts, having been embraced by Joe Biden, for example, as a keystone of his political identity. In this article, I utilise census data from the four primary Anglo-settler polities of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States to demonstrate the comparatively greater extent that Irish ethnic antecedents are remembered by local-born Whites. While acknowledging that drivers of ethnic affiliation are personal and multifaceted, and not directly discernible from answers on a questionnaire, I consider the nature of Irishness as a political identity in settler-colonial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss the need for African social workers to unite if the decolonisation of the social work profession is to be successful. This unity can come through the creation of a strong regional association of social work, which can then promote research, social work regulation and the creation of national associations of social work across Africa – and these can provide the necessary structures for collective action. Such a move will promote unity of purpose and provide a basis for decolonisation. For as long as we are divided, we will continue to lose relevance and recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commonwealth Prime Ministers' (subsequently Heads of Government) Meetings or Conferences were the flagship events of the New Commonwealth in the two decades after the Second World War and the beginning of formal independence and decolonisation in South Asia. The post-war Commonwealth leadership sought to maintain unity on key international issues, which served British strategic interests, at least in the view of British leaders, officials, and influential commentators. The collision of interests between the expansion of Commonwealth membership to include South Asian and, later, African states and the managed decolonisation of the British Empire produced conflicts and compromises that often shaped the progress of the Prime Ministers' Meetings. The New Commonwealth's functioning as an international forum can be better understood by developing insights gained from interdisciplinary methodologies to explore the central role of Jawaharlal Nehru's uses of space at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Meetings to highlight continuities that, ironically, facilitated the profound changes of this era. Taking seriously the multivalent meanings and historical complexity of the Britain and the World analytical framework, we show how British space increasingly came to be used to advance South Asian political goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the origins of community service in Indonesia's higher education (HE) system during the early years of its development in the 1950s and 1960s. Community service helped to establish a wide variety of connections between HE and Indonesian society, but it has received little scholarly attention and is virtually neglected in contemporary indicators of HE performance even though a growing priority for the system in the Global South is its connection with local communities. This article problematises the enactment of community service as the 'third mission' of HE in Indonesia and its practice during these early years. By using an historical approach and drawing on archival materials as data sources, the article argues that the enactment of community service reflected the spirit of decolonisation in Indonesian society. Decolonisation meant that Indonesia wished not only to dispense with the Dutch colonial legacy in HE but also to develop an education system that would be Indonesian in character. Although this third mission of HE was clearly embodied in the community service programme, in later years the emphasis on decolonisation in education policy was reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how can we as geographers, occupying positions of relative privilege but also beholden to institutions entangled with legacies of colonialism and ongoing colonization, find and embody our responsibilities to Indigenous people and nations and contribute to decolonization within and beyond the academy? We begin by reflecting on Doreen Massey's (2004) theorization of geographies of responsibility and critiques of it in the intervening years. We then engage with important considerations including the politics of recognition, relational grammars of settler colonialism and Indigenous notions of relationality. To avoid the traps of recognition politics, which often foreclose the more transformative possibilities of responsibility, we propose ways of taking of decolonial responsibility in our teaching, research and professional service. While we cannot provide simple solutions to the difficult challenge of pursuing decolonization in the academy, we believe that centralizing and prioritizing relationships of responsibility to and through place in support of resurgent Indigenous nationhood is required to avoid the denuding, individualizing process of colonial recognition and superficial performative decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents initiatives undertaken by the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine (GHSM) at King's College London (KCL), exploring avenues to decolonise higher education institutions (HEI). HEI must integrate anti-racism agendas, challenge the European-centric academic knowledge domination, and dismantle power asymmetries. During the academic year 2021, GHSM executed (1) a gap analysis of undergraduate modules, (2) a course on decolonising research methods taught by global scholars to 40 Global South and North university students who completed pre- and post-course surveys, and (3) semi-structured interviews with 11 academics, and a focus group with four students exploring decolonising HEI; findings were thematically analysed. (1) Gap analysis revealed a tokenistic use of Black and minority ethnic and women authors across modules' readings. (2) The post-course survey showed that 68% strongly agreed the course enhanced their decolonisation knowledge. (3) The thematic analysis identified themes: (1) Decolonisation is about challenging colonial legacies, racism, and knowledge production norms. (2) Decolonisation is about care, inclusivity, and compensation. (3) A decolonised curriculum should embed an anti-racism agenda, reflexive pedagogies, and life experiences involving students and communities. (4) HEI are colonial, exclusionary constructs that should shift to transformative and collaborative ways of thinking and knowing. (5) To decolonise research, we must rethink the hierarchy of knowledge production and dissemination and the politics of North-South research collaborations. Decolonising HEI must be placed within a human rights framework. HEI should integrate anti-racism agendas, give prominence to indigenous and marginalised histories and ways of knowing, and create a non-hierarchical educational environment, with students leading the decolonisation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did it become possible for Denmark to integrate Greenland into the colonial metropole during anti-colonial post-Second World War multilateral diplomacy on decolonisation? Scholarship on the evolution of international society generally equates post-war political decolonisation with the universalisation of sovereign independence. This leaves unaddressed that a quarter of colonial territories did not emerge as sovereign states in post-war political decolonisation. Through multi-archival research, this articles starts to address this conundrum by tracing the emergence of integration into the colonial metropole as a route to political decolonisation in early multilateral diplomacy within the United Nations and how this option was first applied to Greenland. Entering the diplomatic engine room, I demonstrate the generative impact of Danish diplomatic practices and the constitutive importance of a discourse of Danish colonial exceptionalism to explain the legal emergence of decolonisation as integration by 1952 and Denmark's ability to employ this option in the United Nations by 1954. The implications of the paper for scholarship on the evolution of international society go beyond uncovering the emergence of integration as a legal option in political decolonisation. Through its attention to everyday discursive negotiation and diplomatic practice, the article nuances extant scholarship by demonstrating that early post-war multilateral diplomacy was less a quick propagation of universal sovereignty than a contentious, ongoing, negotiation over the meaning and application of self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, the 70th anniversary of the Partition of British India was widely discussed in the UK, not only within academic and cultural circles, but also in popular culture. Five years later, on the 75th anniversary of Partition, the scholarly, cultural and community interest in the events of 1947 intersected with the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the expulsion of the South Asian population from Uganda, and the 70th anniversary of the Language Movement that led towards Bangladesh independence in 1971 - the 50th anniversary of which was celebrated just the year before. Based on the work of the Migrant Memory and the Postcolonial Imagination research project (Loughborough University) this article will explore the entanglement of the memories of these events within the South Asian diaspora, and how their transmission and communication shape the construction of contemporary diasporic identity and concepts of community, belonging and 'home.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Black queer men in the UK are increasingly at risk of mental health problems related to anxiety and depression, often triggered by traumatic experiences. This study explored the efficacy of integrative practice with Black queer men who experienced trauma from a decolonised, intersectional and queer‐affirming perspective. Method: One‐to‐one semi‐structured interviews with nine integrative practitioners were completed. Data collected from these interviews were analysed using Braun and Clarke's six stages of reflexive thematic analysis (RTA). Findings: RTA identified four subordinate themes: (1) understanding the experience of Black queer men, (2) developing the working alliance and use of self in practice, (3) effective integrative practice and (4) intersectional differences and considerations. Findings discussed the varying forms of trauma Black queer male clients experienced that impacted their mental health and how developing a strong working alliance with Black queer men was crucial when supporting them to recover from trauma. Additionally, the participants described a breadth of trauma‐informed integrative counselling and coaching practice. A decolonised approach utilising the intersection of race, gender and sexuality of Black queer men was successfully integrated into the approach used by practitioners in this study. Conclusion: Overall, this study evidenced that a decolonised perspective to integrative practice effectively supports Black queer men to recover from trauma. Future research should focus on an integrated approach with Black queer men and other gender and sexual ethnic minority clients who experienced trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport is often harnessed to serve broader societal objectives. In Flanders (Belgium) – the region of interest in this research – sport is instrumentalised to promote social integration and inclusion, particularly among communities with a migration background. However, this Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) policy and programming is not straightforward. Scholars have pointed to the lingering imperial residue within SDP, prompting a need for critical examination. Therefore, this research aims to gain an understanding of how contemporary SDP discourse in Flanders is socially and culturally constructed and what its performative implications are for communities with a migration background. To this end, online documents from the sport administration and organisations involved in SDP were subjected to critical discourse analysis informed by the theoretical and cultural understanding of post-colonial theory and decoloniality. The findings indicate that SDP discourse reflects a complex interplay of imperial legacies and neoliberal influences, simultaneously projecting an image of inclusivity and perpetuating inequalities. Consequently, decolonising the SDP discourse in Flanders is an imperative transformative process and requires a comprehensive approach rooted in historical awareness, contextual sensitivity, and challenging existing power structures. This decolonisation may pave the way for a more equitable and inclusive SDP framework, genuinely reflecting the diverse realities of communities with a migration background while acknowledging and rectifying its colonial legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While domestic violence (DV) has been understood as a form of gendered violence linked to patriarchal power, postcolonial and indigenous feminist criminologies have underscored that DV needs to be understood also in relation to the interactions and entanglements between colonialism, class, race, nation, gender and religion. Moreover, such interventions require questioning Western and secular assumptions and reductions of culture, tradition and nonmodern (read 'non-Western') epistemologies and faith as reserves of mainly patriarchal power. This paper reflects within three practitioner spaces on efforts against DV in Fiji and Tuvalu and how these critiques and interventions are mobilised in practice and with community interactions. We draw on the varied experiences of the three of us (educator, counsellor and police officer) to explore how we are embedded in various forms of translation and bordercrossing work, especially in relation to assumptions, practices and knowledge linked to culture, religion and rights in relation to DV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigated the onomastic need to use Afrocentric names as replacements for Eurocentric ones when renaming South African geographical features. The article further showed how the use of Eurocentric names contradicts the transformation and decolonisation agenda for onomastic epistemic justice. Afrocentricity and Decoloniality were identified as relevant theories to underpin the study The article employed a qualitative approach where content analysis was used for data collection and analysis purposes. The data were randomly collected from names attached to stadia, university buildings and streets. The findings of the article established that there should be synergy and alignment between the renaming and transformation agenda. The article further articulated that the reason(s) behind the use of Euro-centric names over Afrocentric ones are onomastically obscure and opaque. The article recommended that committees and structures responsible for the screening and approval of new names should consider involving or co-opting onomasticians, so as to perform an accurate analysis and provide alternative perspectives. Lastly, experts in Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) should also be co-opted by the South African Geographical Names Council.

While domestic violence (DV) has been understood as a form of gendered violence linked to patriarchal power, postcolonial and indigenous feminist criminologies have underscored that DV needs to be understood also in relation to the interactions and entanglements between colonialism, class, race, nation, gender and religion. Moreover, such interventions require questioning Western and secular assumptions and reductions of culture, tradition and non-modern (read ‘non-Western’) epistemologies and faith as reserves of mainly patriarchal power. This paper reflects within three practitioner spaces on efforts against DV in Fiji and Tuvalu and how these critiques and interventions are mobilised in practice and with community interactions. We draw on the varied experiences of the three of us (educator, counsellor and police officer) to explore how we are embedded in various forms of translation and border-crossing work, especially in relation to assumptions, practices and knowledge linked to culture, religion and rights in relation to DV.

On the occasion of 30 years of South African democracy, we reflect on the current state of Psychology research in South Africa. We conducted a situational analysis of all papers appearing in the South African Journal of Psychology (SAJP) and abstracts in PsycINFO with the keyword 'South Africa' over the last 5 years and compared the results with a previous review that used the same methodology. Findings show an increase in papers using 'hard' science approaches and a decrease in systems-oriented theories. Assessment remains a major topic. While COVID-19 and climate change featured, there remains a lack of or low focus on several key psycho-social issues experienced by South Africans. People living in poorer provinces and young and older people are under-represented in knowledge production. Collaborations or comparisons with other African or South American countries have decreased. Positively, production is being spearheaded by South African scholars or people affiliated with South African institutions. Using a decolonising lens that foregrounds epistemic justice, we conclude that substantial work remains to be done for knowledge production in South African Psychology to fulfil the decolonising imperative of distributive epistemic justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an account of a yarn between a First Nations Australian researcher and an Anglo-Celtic Australian researcher about the future of writing curriculum in subject English education, if school in its current settler-colonial form were to be abolished and completely re-imagined. Yarning is an Indigenous research method evolving from Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing; it is a form of knowledge production. The original yarn, on which this further creative dialogue is based, takes the form of a recorded podcast conversation between the authors, who are academic colleagues at the same university and former English teachers. The research focus of the conversation was what a post-Treaty, post-school writing education might be. However, rather than providing ready answers, our relational thinking foregrounds the challenges in asking this question, and in non-Indigenous Australians expecting Indigenous Australians to provide fixes for the problems engendered by the ongoing injustices of colonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]