Decolonizing International Relations and Development Studies: What’s in a buzzword?
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231166588 |
| Author | Maïka Sondarjee,Nathan Andrews |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020231166588
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Decolonizing International
Relations and Development
Studies: What’sina
buzzword?
Ma¨
ıka Sondarjee
School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Nathan Andrews
Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Abstract
Over the past decade, there has been a new “decolonial turn,”albeit less related
than before to land and political independence. “To decolonize”is now associated
with something less tangible and often under-defined. We argue that scholars,
especially Western ones, should avoid depoliticizing the expression “decolonizing”
by using it as a buzzword. Scholars and policymakers should use the expression
only if it is closely related to the political meaning ascribed to it by Global South and
Indigenous activists and scholars. Decoloniality is a political project of human
emancipation through collective struggles, entailing at least the following: 1)
abolishing racial hierarchies within the hetero-patriarchal and capitalist world
order, 2) dismantling the geopolitics of knowledge production, and 3) re-
humanizing our relationships with Others and nature. We conclude that there is a
need for epistemic humility and that Western scholars and institutions must
refrain from using the word too freely.
Keywords
Decolonial, development studies, international relations, knowledge production,
postcolonialism, coloniality of power, decolonize, racism, universities, Global South
Corresponding author:
Ma¨
ıka Sondarjee, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa,
120 University Rd, Ottawa, ON K1N6N5, Canada.
Email: maika.sondarjee@uottawa.ca
2022, Vol. 77(4) 551–571
Decolonization movements are historically associated with struggles against colonizers
in stolen lands, especially during the 1960s. The aspiration to decolonize was first
associated with social movements against the enslavement of human beings, apartheid,
forced displacement, genocide, imperialism, and formal colonization practices in
general. In Africa, for example, to decolonize has been linked to movements like
Ethiopianism, Garveyism, Negritude, Pan-Africanism, African feminisms, African
Socialism, African Humanism, the Black Consciousness Movement, and the African
Renaissance.
1
Within that context, decolonial leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah
(Ghana), Ahmed Sekou Tour´
e (Guinea), L´
eopold S´
edar Senghor (Senegal), F´
elix
Houphou¨
et-Boigny (Ivory Coast), Modibo Ke¨
ıta (Mali) and Julius Nyerere (Tanzania)
fought against the colonial imposition of political institutions, apartheid, and slavery.
2
In Latin America, many Indigenous women-led movements resisted and still resist
against land grabs by colonizers and now by multinational companies.
3
Many feminist
and nationalist groups also fought against imperialism in South Asia.
4
Modern formal
decolonization struggles include the Palestinian resistance against land confiscation
and resettlement of Israeli populations in Gaza and the West Bank, or the fights of
Indigenous communities to regain sovereignty on their land in western countries,
including the Wet’suwet’en First Nation blockades of Canadian railways in 2020.
In the past decade, however, there has been a new “decolonial turn,”
5
albeit less
related to land and political independence. From formal decolonization (the struggles of
political and economic freedom from colonial powers), de/coloniality of power (or the
decolonial turn) is now associated with freedom from intersubjective power structures
based on racial hierarchies in modernity, racial capitalism, and epistemic violence. It
refers to a broader struggle against coloniality of power and racial hierarchies forged
during the formal colonization era and reinforced ever since. If these come from real
fights against modern forms of oppression and exploitation, in recent years, to de-
colonize or decolonizing has been broadly (and very loosely) associated with fighting
racism or in advocating for anything related to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI).
The term has become trendy in Western academia and civil societies as professors and
administrators (very slowly) realize how their institutions sustain systemic racism,
colonial epistemologies, and ethnocentric practices. By organizing so many events
around the idea of decolonizing, universities, non-governmental organizations, public
institutions, and private foundations are co-opting the term from activist circles and
1. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Decoloniality as the future of Africa: Decoloniality, Africa, power,
knowledge, being,”History Compass 13, no. 10 (October 2015): 488.
2. Frederick Cooper, “Possibility and constraint: African independence in historical perspective,”The
Journal of African History 49, no. 2 (2008): 167–196.
3. S.R. Cusicanqui, “Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa: A reflection on the practices and discourses of decolonization,”
South Atlantic Quarterly 111, no. 1 (January 1, 2012): 95–109.
4. KumariJayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, The Feminist Classics (London and
New York: Verso, 2016).
5. Ramón Grosfoguel, “The epistemic decolonial turn: Beyond political-economy paradigms,”Cultural
Studies 21, no. 2–3 (March 2007): 211–223.
552 International Journal 77(4)
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