Anti-Racism and Decolonization in the University

Beginning with a reflection on her political and theoretical journey in developing an anti-colonial and anti-racist analysis, Dr. Verna St. Denis will focus on three key questions: Is it possible to decolonize and indigenize the university, a centuries-old colonial institution? When statements are made about indigenizing and transforming the university, what is meant by these claims? Are there examples of western knowledge systems and Indigenous knowledge systems providing opportunity for mutual understanding?

Dr. Shirley Anne Tate’s Black feminist decolonial thinking emerges from reading against theoretical givens, and resisting tendencies to reinscribe annihilation and silencing by colonization and coloniality. This means that antiracism is an essential part of decolonial thinking, knowledge construction, and practice. One necessary building block of transformation in universities is that as we turn away from whiteness as a structure of domination, and not replace one form of domination by another. Aimé Césaire's idea of disalienation points to a movement away from coloniality towards new world political and knowledge imaginaries, which resonate with our lived experiences.