Decolonization: Towards a Middle Ground
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7557/13.8378Keywords:
Decolonization, Decoloniality, Anticolonialism, #RhodesMustFall, South AfricaAbstract
Decolonization has been something of a buzzword in numerous academic disciplines as well as in activism in recent years. In its original conception, it refers to the formal end to colonial rule and to political sovereignty, but the concept cannot be reduced to this. There is a crucial distinction to be made between (a) decolonization and (b) the decolonial/decoloniality. The case I will use here is the 2015-16 #RhodesMustFall movement in South Africa. I argue for the importance of studying calls for decolonization, and the question of who mobilizes around calls for decolonization and their attended concepts, and for what purposes they do so. Following Mbembe (2016, 2019, 2020), I also argue for a productive engagement with, rather than wholesale condemnation of, calls to “decolonize” and of decolonizing and/or decolonial literature. I identify this as a “middle ground” of decolonization.
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