Dan Wood
Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7258-9227
Villanova University, USA
daniel.wood@villanova.edu

Abstract:

In this paper I analyze and chart a number of the different conceptual and philosophical issues pertinent to discourses concerning ‘epistemic decolonization.’ Such discussions occur across a wide range of disciplines and often involve equivocations and/or overt disagreements about fundamental issues. This piece offers one account of why epistemic (de)colonization is a problem in the first place and brings to light some of the key differences between a number of different approaches to the decolonization of knowledge. The present clarification, I argue, is crucial to linking projects of theoretical decolonization to concrete political programs and to overcoming a prima facie approach to decolonizing knowledge.

Keywords: decolonization, epistemic decolonization, anticolonialism, politics of knowledge, decolonial theory.