Decolonial Options in Higher Education

In order for decolonization to avoid becoming yet another orthodoxy, this book argues that it is necessary to recognize the neoliberal ideologies and imperatives that drive so much work in universities in both the Global Norths and Global Souths, and to understand the enmeshment (both historical and ongoing) of universities in colonial practices. The chapters interrogate both these issues and the terms in which they are usually critiqued in order to identify the cracks and fissures within institutions that may enable decolonization to be leveraged as a praxis and a means of radical change. The chapters explore a range of issues across Higher Education including reparations, allyship, soft power, academic publishing and the politics of race within the university; together they represent an argument for the necessity of continually rethinking and re-making the theories, methods and assumptions of decolonization.

Sinfree Makoni is Director of African Studies, Liberal Arts Professor of African Studies and Applied Linguistics, The Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Chanel van der Merwe is Lecturer in linguistics and applied linguistics at Nelson Mandela University, and a doctoral candidate at University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research interests include the African university, language policy, multilingualism, feminist and southern epistemologies. She is an organizing team member of the Global Virtual Forum hosted by the African Studies Centre at Penn State University under the leadership of Professor Sinfree Makoni.