Introduction: racialized gender dialogues in/on decolonizing the university

Abstract

Decolonization’s definitions, politics and practices within universities vary transnationally. The shared theoretical grounding on which the contributors in this book focus are Black, Africana, Womxn of Colour and decolonial feminist theory, African and Latin American decolonial theory and radical pedagogies. Shared transnational understandings coalesce around decentering Western epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies, challenging U.S. American-/Euro-centric master narratives and returning to alter/native doing/being/knowing/teaching/learning that centre humanizing education, coalition building and intersectionality with an emphasis on racialized gender in its varied manifestations. This opposes the single truths that inhabit institutions, canons and psyches through colonialism’s power/knowledge/being and the coloniality of gender (Lugones, Toward a decolonial feminism. Hypatia 25 (4): 742759.https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/toward-a-decolonial feminism/55AE2579879922FABD10230203ACFBA0, 2010). Decolonization’s transnational moments in the university are policy and practice; thinking; epistemic disobedience; pluriversality; critique of liberalism; relearning; dismantling whiteness; relational solidarity; and standpoint and competency.