FSS - Decolonization and Beyond

Decolonization has become a powerful slogan calling to transform the humanities and social sciences and education at large. Scholars have denounced that the longstanding consequences of colonialism include the obliteration of diversity which ultimately impoverished our understanding of society, economics, or politics. In what concerns education, science and technology and the development of intellectual capacities, this move has been important for many reasons. First for recognizing that practices long established by modern European colonialism are silently entrenched within basic operations of knowledge production, including the formation of future scholars and scientists. The so-called decolonial turn has also helped us to understand that the obliteration of diversity – understood as the annihilation of representation of different racial, gender and sexual, class and caste identities – is part of a project reinforced by European imperialism which started in the 15th century and damaged societies. In this course we will discuss literature, share ideas with guest speakers, and talk about our own experiences and practices as researchers. The ultimate aim is to find ways for renewed academic practices.

Course objectives

• To promote a welcoming, cooperative, non-competitive and yet intellectually challenging environment.
• To introduce students to the names, semantics, theories, political commitment of scholars dedicated to discussing ideas of autonomy, dependency and liberatory projects.
• To introduce students to “theories from the South” as a strategy to discuss the history and the role of distinct sociological traditions to the development of politically engaged disciplinary projects.

To address the theoretical-political engagement of critical pedagogies as a resourceful toolkit and method for inspiring collaborative ways for understanding the centrality attitudes and ethics in social sciences and the humanities.