(De)coloniality through Indigeneity:Deconstructing Calls to Decolonise in the South African and Canadian University Contexts

Authors

  • Shana Almeida York University
  • Siseko H. Kumalo University of Pretoria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/3023

Keywords:

Blackness, decolonisation, higher education, Indigeneity, South Africa, Canada

Abstract

The ways in which Africanisation and decolonisation in the South African academy have been framed and carried out have been called into question over the past several years, most notably in relation to modes of silencing and epistemic negation, which have been explicitly challenged through the student actions. In a similar vein, Canada’s commitments to decolonising its university spaces and pedagogies have been the subject of extensive critique, informed by (still unmet) claims to land, space, knowledge, and identity. Despite extensive critique, policies and practices in both South African and Canadian academic spaces remain largely unchanged, yet continue to stand as evidence that decolonisation is underway. In our paper, we begin to carefully articulate an understanding of decolonisation in the academy as one which continues to carry out historical relations of colonialism and race. Following the work of Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang (2012), we begin the process of “de-mythologising†decolonisation, by first exposing and tracing how decolonising claims both reinforce and recite the racial and colonial terms under which Indigeneity and Blackness are “integrated†in the academy. From our respective contexts, we trace how white, western ownership of space and knowledge in the academy is reaffirmed through processes of invitation, commodification, and erasure of Indigenous/Black bodies and identities. However, we also suggest that the invitation and presence of Indigenous and Black bodies and identities in both academic contexts are necessary to the reproduction and survival of decolonising claims, which allows us to begin to interrogate how, why, and under what terms bodies and identities come to be “included†in the academy. We conclude by proposing that the efficacy of decoloniality lies in paradigmatic and epistemic shifts which begin to unearth and then unsettle white supremacy in both contexts, in order to proceed with aims of reconciliation and reclamation.

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Author Biography

Shana Almeida, York University

Dr. Shana Almeida is a scholar, researcher, and activist in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Dr. Almeida completed her Ph.D. in the School of Social Work at York University in Toronto (2016). Her research “Theorizing the Local: Diversity, Race, and Belonging in the City of Toronto†draws on critical race, queer, feminist, and postcolonial theories to explore how race is reproduced and organized through “diversity†discourse in Toronto’s municipal government. She has had the privilege of being invited to share her work at several local, national and international conferences.
Her interests in decolonality are informed by the complexities of her location within settler colonialism, her activist-ally work, her research on race and knowledge production, and well as her critiques of social work as a “helping†profession, given the ongoing violence social work perpetuates against racialized and Indigenous communities in Canada.

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Published

2018-06-07

How to Cite

Almeida, Shana, and Siseko H. Kumalo. 2018. “(De)coloniality through Indigeneity:Deconstructing Calls to Decolonise in the South African and Canadian University Contexts”. Education As Change 22 (1):24 pages. https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/3023.

Issue

Section

Articles
Received 2017-08-04
Accepted 2018-04-02
Published 2018-06-07