Claire Gallien, "A Decolonial Turn in the Humanities " (Summary)

A Decolonial Turn in the Humanities by Claire Gallien critically examines the development and reception of the decolonial turn in Western and French academia, tracing its genealogical foundations, points of overlap with postcolonial studies, and theoretical contributions of its founding figures. Key decolonial concepts include "epistemicide," "the hubris of the point zero," "coloniality," the "zone of non-being," "delinking," and "pluriversality," and how they constitute new venues for critical thinking in the West. The decolonial approach does not restrict itself to a critique of the colonial episteme and world order but also entails recognizing one's positionality as scholar, critic, and speaker, decentering and pluralizing knowledge formations, and offering alternative ways to conceptualize and experience the world.

The article explores critical zones insufficiently addressed by decolonial thinkers, such as the field's reliance on a homogenized version of "the" West and of "modernity," its controversial relation to and participation in the system itself, and the problematic interactions of various epistemic formations under pluriversality. Both postcolonial and decolonial studies engage with global structures, experiences, and discourses of colonial domination, focusing on marginalized people whose experiences, imaginations, and knowledge of the world count less or do not count at all.

Postcolonialism and decolonial thinking both aim to critique the legacy of colonialism by borrowing from Western poststructuralist theory. Decolonialism aligns with other modes of thinking belonging to groups that have been undermined, repressed, discriminated against, or massacred under colonial, imperial, neo-liberal, patriarchal, and/or secular rule. Decolonial thinking proposes to re-experience, re-imagine, and re-think the world based on different epistemic foundations and ontologies.

Postcolonialism has found a stronger echo in philosophy due to its focus on epistemologies. The "postcolonial turn" in anthropology from the 1970s has transformed the relation of ethnographers to their theory and practice, leading to a departure from Western projections of exotic alterity and mistrust towards pretension to universal truth. Anthropologists are now engaged in alternative ways of understanding and experiencing worlds.

Decolonization is rooted in practical and metaphysical revolt, as epistemic violence is always connected with other forms of violence, be it economic, social, or ecological. Some decolonial thinkers, such as Arturo Escobar, follow activism rather than the other way round, advocating for "delinking" from Western colonial modernity so that other epistemic formations may be acknowledged and reckoned with.

Universities in the Global South overturn the epistemic hegemony of the North and reclaim knowledge traditions crushed under modern capitalism and colonialism. The first step towards decolonizing Humanities in the North is to overcome the myth of non-situatedness, which conceals epistemic, ideological, political, and economic locations.

The global decolonial turn in the Humanities consists of two strands: historiographical and minorized knowledges. Decolonial Islam is used in social activism, feminist struggles, and to question secularism and Western "democracy" as the ultimate political model. Decolonizing Humanities in the West involves engaging in praxi-theory, which is connected with action. Mignolo's concepts of "delinking," "border-thinking," and the "pluriverse" can serve as tools to decolonize curricula and reverse systemic racism and sexism. Delinking is a precondition for the decolonization of the mind and for the emergence of pluriversality, i.e., the recognition and re-emergence on the global map of systems of knowledge produced outside the Global North.

Decolonial thinking offers new formulas to rethink relations between diverse cosmovisions and individuals, humans, and non-humans who inhabit the earth. This movement has influenced the foundation of popular and indigenous universities, organizing decolonial summer schools, and advocating for the decolonization of the curriculum. Decolonial thinkers have been a significant force in the Humanities, influencing the foundation of popular and indigenous universities, organizing decolonial summer schools, and advocating for the decolonization of the curriculum.

In the neo-liberal era, the Humanities have been heavily impacted, with decolonial thinkers advocating for a genuine decolonization of curricula and teaching methods. Three cases in South Africa, the UK, and France have highlighted the importance of decolonization in shaping higher education. The Rhodes Must Fall movement, which resurfaced in 2015, led to debates over who determines curricula and how they can be changed for emancipation and social/racial/sexual justice. African scholars have written a decolonial blueprint that includes re-reading Western classics with a decolonial lens, relinking body and mind in pedagogical practices, redefining knowledge from embodied positions, making knowledge locally relevant and participatory, examining the politics of defining what counts as knowledge, the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and calling for the pluralization of languages of study.

In South Africa, universities function according to neo-liberal rules, and curricula are still largely modeled on the West. Decolonial experiences challenge the evaluation of success or failure, as students and academics have been able to generate difficult but necessary debates about institutionalized racism, white privilege, neo-liberal, sexual, and colonial hierarchies and aggression. In France, the first decolonial movement was carried out by activists and thinkers outside French universities, fighting against institutionalized racism and Islamophobia.

The French press and media have been using rhetoric of invasion and fear to distort struggles for individual emancipation and liberty, with intellectuals and experts being targeted by decolonial attackers. French progressive movements, such as antiracists, decolonizers, and feminists, are engaging in diversion of struggles for individual emancipation and liberty to the benefit of objectives that are their very opposites and constitute frontal attacks of Republican universalism.

Republican universalism is paired with the habitual anti-poor and anti-immigrant discourse of stealing jobs and benefiting from state pensions to avoid engaging with the critical interventions of decolonial scholars. Journalist Judith Waintraub uses the term "noyautage" to describe the work of scholars involved in decolonial, Islamic, and gender studies, accusing them of collusion with radical student unions and infiltrating the university.

The French mainstream Left and its media outlets do not do any better to dispel the confusion, especially when it comes to decolonizing Islam. There has been an attempt to clear a space for proper debate over decolonial matters in France, via publications and French translations of American writers in Spanish and English. Workshops, summer schools, publications, and conferences are crucial tools to push against a French culture of hysteria that eludes the real issues of race, Islam, and colonial history by resorting to disparagement, lambasting, and intellectual dishonesty towards decolonial thinking.