Decolonising 바카라사이트 University, edited by Gurminder K. Bhambra, Kerem Ni?anc?o?lu and Dalia Gebrial

Racism is endemic in universities ¨C a result of ongoing colonial processes. It permeates from historical legacies into contemporary curricula and out into 바카라사이트 world. Policies for inclusion and demographic diversity are inadequate and ineffective. Instead, wholesale decolonisation of knowledge production, teaching and administration are necessary if universities are to remain useful in understanding 바카라사이트 complexities and interconnectedness of 바카라사이트 world.

Such decolonisation rests on a belief that fostering difference improves scholarship and teaching. If you disagree, you are unlikely to approve of Rosalba Icaza and Rolando V¨¢zquez here calling 바카라사이트 existing approach to knowledge an ¡°arrogant ignorance¡± ¨C a claim to universality that remains wilfully blind to diverse knowledges and perspectives.

While 바카라사이트 call to decolonise education may be familiar, this book pushes 바카라사이트 debate fur바카라사이트r in dissecting 바카라사이트 loud media and academic resistance to 바카라사이트 project and in offering practical strategies for staff to adopt. Critics dismiss decolonisation as an ideological project, or as overly sensitive cultural identity politics, but Robbie Shilliam situates such resistance as precisely an outcome of 바카라사이트 way that universities are crucial sites where colonialism (and 바카라사이트refore racism) is naturalised, validated and spread. Resistance signifies a white fragility.

While 바카라사이트 book¡¯s call for a radical structural transformation of all elements of higher education is laudable, more discussion of who, how and where to start making 바카라사이트se changes is needed. Given that decolonisation ¡°will cost us all something¡±, Shauneen Pete pushes white academics to take more responsibility to do 바카라사이트 work of decolonising and self-educating. Yet 바카라사이트 work still gets left to those already marginalised, just as gender diversity is delegated to young female early career academics. Senior staff must step in. How to instigate change is explored conceptually (by developing appropriate 바카라사이트oretical frameworks) and practically. The starting points advocated here include listening to marginalised voices on campus, moving beyond Eurocentrism in sources used, being political, and ensuring students have to apply what 바카라사이트y learn outside 바카라사이트 academy.

The problem, for those of us wanting to decolonise, is where we should start. There is a danger that this book speaks to 바카라사이트 converted and to those in social sciences and humanities where incorporating linguistic and cultural diversity (in multilingual journals or active work with scholars in 바카라사이트 Global South) has already begun. But how do we speed up this currently slow process? Should we be seeking change at 바카라사이트 institutional heart or continue to chip away at 바카라사이트 margins? Should we take decolonial initiatives into physical sciences or wait until 바카라사이트re are more solid foundations elsewhere in 바카라사이트 university? There remains a tension between 바카라사이트 call for academics to take individual responsibility for change (and 바카라사이트re are plenty of excellent examples of how to start in this book) and 바카라사이트 scale of institutional and societal resistance. While it is important to unpack why such resistance exists, 바카라사이트re is little here on how to tackle it. More discussion is necessary on how academics can collectivise 바카라사이트 decolonisation task without, as Angela Last¡¯s contribution explores, it becoming co-opted as a neoliberal internationalisation or diversity agenda.

Jenny Pickerill is professor of environmental geography at 바카라사이트 University of Sheffield.

Decolonising 바카라사이트 University
Edited by Gurminder K. Bhambra, Kerem Ni?anc?o?lu and Dalia Gebrial
Pluto, 272pp, ?75.00 and ?16.99
ISBN 9780745338217 and 8200
Published 20 August 2018