How can we decolonise the curriculum of higher education?
Higher education and colonialism have been interdependent, there is a long history between the two (C.S. Wilder 2013, M. Sheller 2003) hence the urgency to decolonise the curriculum in higher education as well as decolonising academia as it is one of many cultural bastions used to spread and reproduce imperial influence.
This essay will be divided into two questions, the first question asking, ‘what does it even mean to decolonise?!’. It is here where questioning how the term decolonised is used. Can decolonisation truly be attained in any field? Why is it urgent to decolonise an entity like higher education? The term decolonisation has been a contemporary buzzword, what definition is appropriate when discussing a topic like higher education? Thinkers like Franz Fanon (1963) and Jan C. Jansen (2017) will be brought to consideration with defining what decolonisation is or can be. Such thinkers will help ground a working definition to work with.
The second question will ask, ‘what does it look like to decolonise higher education?’. There has been a lot of movement around and within institutions that govern higher education on decolonising the curricula and the academic structure. A lot of protest and occupation has been a result of such movement. Here we delve into how students and staff have come together to confront their respective universities about their colonial leanings and the impact it has had within higher education. Starting off with the Rhodes Must Fall movement which erupted in 2015 in South African University of Cape Town to the Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action movement which followed in 2019. How have these movements made progress or whether they have and can make progress? In addition to how Other (S. Hall 1997) thinkers are operating outside the confines of institutions that govern higher education, seeking spaces outside said institutions as they have become a violent space for Black and People of Colour (POC). The Free Black University project (2021) is a case study that will demonstrate the potential of placing faith moving beyond institutions that govern higher education as a real way of decolonising higher education and its curricula.
The discourse on decolonisation is contemporary, whether it is possible to decolonise higher education and its curriculum is ‘demonic’ (S. Wynter 1990, K. McKittrick 2006). Demonic not in the sense of other worldly, but that this discourse answers operate ‘outside the space-time orientation of the homuncular observer’ (K. McKittrick 2006: XXV) In other words, we are yet to see where it can take us. This essay will be showcasing ways in which decolonising higher education can take us and where it has taken us so far and whether it is truly possible to decolonise higher education and its curriculum.
What does it even mean to decolonise?!
The term decolonised has burst into the academic vernacular with growing popularity. It makes you wonder, how and where did this term come to be? How does one “decolonise” something? What are the terms and conditions needed for a substance, an operation, a complex or an existence to be decolonised? Does decolonising require the undoing of colonisation? Can decolonisation undo the violence of colonialisation? How is that possible in a literal sense? Can it be done in a literal way? Does the word decolonisation have value and impact in a post-colonial era?
Thinkers like Hortense Spillers (1987) who have voiced that the bodies in the ‘Middle Passage’ (H. Spillers 1987) will not be returning, the tortured bodies displaced from their motherland, the indigenous bodies and land seized from North and South America will not be returning to its former existence (B. Bakare-Yusuf c1999, G. Spivak 2012) so decolonising cannot be achieved in a literal sense. So how does decolonising operate?
It’s important to highlight how the term decolonisation is a word that has metamorphosed into many forms for many uses, contexts, ‘interpretations, aims and strategies.’ (G.K. Bhambra, K. Nisancioglu & D. Gebrial 2018:2). The term has built a space of contestation on how it can be applied in post-colonial discourse (A. Mbembe 2015; F.R Betts 2012; R. Raben & E. Bogaerts 2012), public discourse and our way of living due to it ‘consisting of a heterogeneity of viewpoints, approaches, political projects and normative concerns.’ (G.K. Bhambra, K. Nisancioglu & D. Gebrial 2018:2). Its heterogenous nature has allowed the term “decolonise” to situate its concerns with ways on how we rethink the effects of empire, racism, and its colonial residue as well as its influence in contemporary systemic bodies. In addition to offering alternative forms of political practice that decentres itself from imperialism and eurocentrism.
Franz Fanon (1963) positions his definition of decolonisation as a historical process with an objective to ‘set out change to the order of the world’ (F. Fanon 1963: 36) a post-colonial world, a process that operates within a ‘program of complete disorder’ (F. Fanon 1963: 36). An emphasis is made on how the term decolonisation is interlocked with matters of empire; the impact and influence it has and still has formed a state of complete disorder, order is then found through the process, this process being decolonisation.
Thinkers like Jan C. Jansen (2017) develops Fanon’s sentiments on decolonisation being a process, adding how decolonisation is a mechanism that brings ‘the disappearance of empire as a political form, and the end of racial hierarchy as a widely accepted political ideology and structuring principle of world order’ (J.C. Jansen 2017: 1). A mechanism that aims to decentre eurocentrism as a leading influence in political governance, this Eurocentric political praxis being the program of complete disorder.
The colonial residue of imperialism does not end its concerns with political governance but bleeds into every node in western society’s nexus. The ‘afterlife’ (S. Hartman 2007) of colonialism has braided itself within the curriculum of higher education, its curriculum being a method in our ‘world-making’ (E. Meyerhoff 2019: 4). Higher education is a space and place that has methods of knowledge production which centres itself around notions ‘that are associated with modernist, colonial, capitalist, statist, white supremacist, heteropatriachal norms’ (E. Meyerhoff 2019: 4) or how Audre Lorde puts it, ideas that ‘the white fathers told us were precious’ (2014: 1). Such ideas that reinforce cultural and racial imperialism (R. Eddo-Lodge 2017) as well as the recycling of nominal categories (G. Spivak 2009) and consolidating values of class and the myth of ‘class mobility’ (L. Back 2016: 81). Ideas that are violent to the Black and POC communities that frequent these institutions.
Institutions that govern higher education have made attempts to “decolonise” in a quick fix; here’s a plaster to cover the scars method with increasing advertisement on diversifying the curriculums for wider representation. But the term decolonisation’s interpretation ‘should not be mistaken for “diversification”’ (London Metropolitan University on Decolonising Academia 2022) or used as a metaphor for achieving political correctness. Decolonisation like the sentiments of Fanon (1963) & Jansen (2017) made earlier is to challenge the Eurocentric and colonial leanings higher education reproduces within its practice, in other words decolonisation challenges ‘institutional hierarchies which dominate higher education and the monopoly on knowledge’ (London Metropolitan University on Decolonising Academia 2022) and its grip on knowledge production, dismantling the current order.
So, what does it look like to decolonise higher education?
A lot of action has been put forth in the effort to decolonise higher education and subsequently decolonise its curricula. The Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) movement which erupted in 2015 at the University of Cape Town (UCT) during the spring of Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement focused the ‘struggle to decolonise the racist heart of empire’ (R. Chantiluke, B. Kwoba & A. Nkopo 2018) and its grip within academia by demanding to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes in addition to ‘decolonising the entire university structure’ (T. Asheeke 2019: 72). The RMF movement sparked international occupation and gatherings at many different universities internationally to look towards their university’s involvement in empire and its pro colonial leanings.
The removal of Cecil Rhodes Statue was a beginning step in decolonising the UCT, and the same in the Rhodes Must Fall, Oxford (RMFO) movement. Cecil Statue is a glorification of his racist and colonial legacy, Cecil Rhodes being one of many ‘agents for British imperialism…’ (T. Asheeke 2019: 72), the battle for decolonising higher education for RMF & RMFO movement does not end with the removal of Cecil statue, but also the influence these agents of British imperialism have contributed to ‘anti-Black knowledge structures and epistemology of the academy’ (T. Asheeke 2019: 72). The RMF & RMFO movement spread its influence close to home, being one out of many influences for the formation of Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action (GARA) which began a student led occupation of Deptford Town Hall in 2019. Just Like UCT and Oxford University, Goldsmiths had statues and a university structure that needs decolonising.
Three of the statues that drape outside Deptford Town Hall represent figures who have played a considerable part in the British slave trade, these three being Francis Drake, Robert Blake and Horatio Nelson, each pioneer in British imperialism, the last statue being a symbol of empire. GARA occupied the Deptford Town Hall for 137 days, ‘the occupation was brought to a close on 27 July 2019 after the campaigners established a mutually agreed statement of commitments’ (Commitments to Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action 2022). The following commitments are listed:
- Information and consultation on Deptford Town Hall statues
- Access to Deptford Town Hall for Lewisham residents
- Reinstatement of scholarship for Palestinian students
- Review of Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies (STaCS) contact hours
- Mandatory anti-racism training for all staff
- Employment of BME wellbeing and counselling staff and rollout of cultural competency training
- Outsourced cleaners, front of house and security staff to be brought in-house
- New complaints reporting system
- Annual fund for Black history events
- Public statement on Goldsmiths’ complicity in racism
- Research into Goldsmiths’ colonial heritage and reparative justice programme
- Funding for paid departmental BME representatives
- Additional funding for faith, religion and belief-based events and bigger prayer space
(Commitments to Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action 2022)
And in relation to this essay, a commitment for the decolonisation of the curriculum. A commitment detailing that the Senior Management Team (SMT) will revise the curriculum, with such revision leading to the formation of projects like ‘Liberate our Library and Black Lives Matter Reading Lists’ (Commitments to Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action 2022). Initiatives like the Liberate our Library has led to the diversification of the library collection in order to ‘decentre Whiteness…challenge non-inclusive structure in knowledge management…’ (Liberate our Library 2022). Such projects have been placed on lecturers and departments to collaborate with the library to curate a collection with wider representation. This should surely solve the issues within higher education, right? The collections in our library have been diversified. This decolonial project is a lot more complicated than simply changing one bolt in the entire machine.
Decolonising the curriculum should not just mean the diversification or seeking wider representation. Decolonisation as stated before is not a metaphor, instead a process, a process that requires all parts of the mechanism to be rethought for the entire machine to operate well. Can you really decolonise the curriculum when you still have statues of slave traders and advocates hanging outside the Town Hall or placed within university grounds like that at UCT and Oxford? It’s a contradiction, especially here at Goldsmiths which considers itself to be a forward-thinking establishment. It is contradictions like these that have led others to seek a decolonial form of knowledge production elsewhere, outside the university complex. Universities might have a monopoly on higher education, but higher education does not need to be produced from such establishments.
At the peak of decolonial action and discussion, the Free Black University project popped into action. ‘Melz Owusu has crowdfunded £60,000 to start a decolonised institution.’ (H. Swain in the Guardian 2020) and has currently managed to raise up to £149,697 on GoFundMe (The Free Black University Fund 2021). Owusu came to a realisation like many of us within the academic structures; ‘this idea of transforming the university from the inside and having a decolonised curriculum isn’t going to happen with the way the structures of the university are’ (M. Owusu comments to H. Swain in the Guardian 2020). Echoing Audre Lorde’s (1984: 110) famous statement, that ‘the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house’. Decolonising the curriculum in higher education in established universities is a tiresome effort. So tiresome that scholars like M. Owusu seek answers and results elsewhere, now operating in the ‘undercommons’ (F. Moten & S. Harney 2013). The Free Black University is a place for ‘radical and transformative knowledge production’ (M. Owusu comment on the Free Black University Fund 2021), the attempts to decolonise higher education within university is a lengthy process and with each step forward, the clearer it becomes, the entire establishment needs to be abolished and started over again.
The Free Black University works parallel to existing universities. It centres incubating and creation of transformative knowledge, anti-colonial / decolonial principles and education for Black healing in as much as climate justice as the climate crisis is linked to colonialism. Melz Owusu set out with 10 long term visions for the Free Black University, here are a few from the list:
- “Deliver a range of open access and very accessible online lectures and teachings to the community exploring radical and transformational topics”
- “Build an open access, free, and expansive online library of radical readings, writings from people across the world…”
- “Free and accessible education centred on the freedom of Black people which necessarily succeeds the freedom of all people”
- “An annual conference that brings together Black radical thinkers (that are not only academics) to collectively produce knowledge and vision for Black liberation”
(M. Owusu statements on the Free Black University Fund 2021)
Radical racial liberation and abolition of existing structures is the key to forming spaces that produce alternative forms of knowledge production. Melz Owusu project with the Free Black University is ‘Black, queer, trans, anti-colonial, and revolutionary’ (M. Owusu statements on the Free Black University Fund 2021) at its core. Just Like the GARA movement and RMF/RMFO, the Free Black University is a seed, a seed to empower people after them to continue this decolonial project, not much has happened since 2021 with both GARA, RMFO and the Free Black University, as we are living through the process.
With moves to decolonising higher education being somewhat of a recent phenomenon, recent as in the move for immediate action has allowed us to build a vision like the Free Black University to work parallel to established universities. Only so much can be said on what is yet to come and has to come, ‘change…is not a parade that can be watched as it passes’ (C. Geertz 1995: 4). We are living through that chaotic process Fanon (1963) proclaimed. It is hard to describe the present as it is always forming.
Concluding thoughts:
One cannot decolonise the curriculum by diversifying the reading list and expect things to be solved. But instead, each and every aspect in the build of academia needs decolonising. Decolonising the curriculum in higher education does not fix the many issues that have seep into the academic complex due to imperial residue and influence.
To decolonise is not an overnight task, nor is it a process for those seeking instant gratification. To decolonise is not a process that operates smoothly as well, Fanons (1963) words on decolonisation operating in a program of chaos rings true in today’s time. Looking at how passionate the RMF/RMFO protest as well as the actions in GARA to start the decolonial process in higher education by removing statues that glorify empire is a chaotic one. If not forcibly removed, how will they go? And if they do not go how can you then start decolonising other aspects of higher education?
To decolonise is an intersectional (K. Crenshaw 1989) process as well. With each of the protest, there is a focus on issues that place race, gender, and class at the core. The move to decolonise higher education has open conversation on how universities are sites for violence, the Eurocentric production of knowledge is a violent system, effecting Black and people of colour (POC) students and lecturers. To decolonise then means to liberate the POC from the violence within higher education. This realisation was put forward in the Free Black University ethos, the existing academic structure is a space that Black and POC do not benefit from in comparison to the counterparts. Thinkers like Melz Owusu seek answers elsewhere divorced from the existing structure of academia and into the undercommons. Aware that the master’s tools cannot be used to dismantle the master’s house, operating outside an existing establishment is a daunting task, a task that will not be actualised overnight. But at least the Free Black University with its utopic vision is striving to make this decolonial space for higher education a reality, the results are still in progress. How long till we hear more from Melz Owusu?
Decolonising higher education is a contemporary topic. Much to be said on it, yet few results. To answer this essays question on how can we decolonise the curriculum in higher education? Well to decolonise just the curriculum is a step in a direction. But for that step to take course into movement, the entire academic structure needs reviewing, rethinking, undoing and a clean start, not just a review on the curriculum. How is this achieved? Not through one method but just like the heterogeneous nature of decolonial discourse, the action needed to decolonise higher education needs to simultaneously move on a multitude of levels. In addition to an important aspect of decolonising higher education being time. This essay has stressed enough how decolonial discourse is in a constant state of flux and contestation, decolonial discourse is operating in a program of absolute chaos.
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