The decolonial pedagogies of colonial violence: Curricular decolonisation in the (geo)sciences

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which physical scientists, especially in the geosciences, are responding to calls to decolonise university curricula in current conjunctural conditions. It asserts that it is crucial not to strip decolonisation of its radical political potential and reduce it to an instrumental Equity, Diversion and Inclusion (EDI) initiative. Geoscientists in higher education who wish to decolonise their curricula must also pay attention to epistemological pluralism, politics, and colonial violence and free themselves from Eurocentric legacies of positivism, universality and objectivity. They must also make the turn to social theory, in ways that address the politics of geologic matter and the modes of violence that geoscientific practice and knowledge reproduce. Engaging with curricular decolonisation has potential not only to arrest the decline being experienced by the geosciences, but to make the forced neoliberal mergers between geography and geology less painful and more intellectually productive.

Short Abstract

This article explores the ways in which physical scientists, especially in the geosciences, are responding to calls to decolonise university curricula in current conjunctural conditions. It asserts that geoscientists who wish to decolonise their curricula must pay attention to epistemological pluralism, politics, and colonial violence and free themselves from Eurocentric legacies of positivism, universality and objectivity. Engaging with curricular decolonisation has potential not only to arrest the decline being experienced by the geosciences, but to make the forced neoliberal mergers between geography and geology less painful and more intellectually productive.