Decolonising the University
02 December 2024
Workshop at the Coimbra Group Annual Conference – Wednesday, 5 June 2024, Turku (Finland)
Joint event organised by Working Groups Heritage, Latin America and Global Partnerships
The initiative was motivated by the growing need, perceived at various partner institutions and resonating in the public discussions, of a new approach to knowledge construction and also to the history of their own institutions, and their involvement in the past in the processes that shaped the global situation of the present day. The new challenges facing the global community today, such as climate change, pandemics, and migration, clearly indicate the necessity for an intercultural attitude in knowledge construction that can no longer be considered as a specificity of Western world but rather as a plural and multi-centred space.
There was an effort to go beyond the realm of theoretical discussions that can cross-fertilize academic policies and the way they are conceived in relation to the Global Majority. The core idea was to share experiences of researchers who have built solid research/teaching experiences with non-European realities based on intercultural and collaborative principles in order to enhance added value and good practices. The purpose of the workshop was to induce a profound rethinking of the colonial entanglement in academic relations through which all sides can mutually benefit.
In her welcome speech, Prof. Leila Koivunen from the University of Turku emphasised the importance of the topic, as the problem of decolonization concerns universities everywhere in Europe, and reverberates both in the inner workings of the universities and in their international agenda, especially in the partnerships with institutions from Global Majority. She noted that the historical legacies of exclusion and oppression continue to affect universities to this day. She brought as an example the long history of the University of Turku and Abo Akademi, marked by language conflicts, identity formation processes and the complicated history of Finland that several times brought it into subordinate position towards foreign powers. As Finland itself had never held any colonies, the traditional narrative of national history presented the image of colonial innocence, or even portrayed Finns as victims of colonisation. Only recently, these notions had been challenged through such concepts as colonialism without colonies or cultural colonialism, and the calls for a re-evaluation of Finnish connection to the colonial world. Historical research shows that Finland, and many other European regions, became connected to the colonial world in various ways and benefited economically from the colonial world order (colonial ethos with local varieties). Concluding her presentation, Prof. Koivunen again highlighted the complexity of the processes of decolonization, and the need to learn from the experiences of others.
The first keynote lecture, “Decolonisation’s Long Struggle: Imperialism, the University, and the Advent of Artificial Intelligence’, was delivered online by Prof. Parvati Nair (University of London), Professor of Hispanic, Cultural and Migration Studies and Convenor of QMUL’s Global Policy Institute. It opened with reference to Frantz Fanon, who inspired several revolutions and African independencies. Sixty years later, decolonization remains a challenge in Europe, and the ‘post’ in the ‘postcolonial’ does not denote decolonization. At the European universities, decolonization is at the same time a project in the making and undermined, as the personal experience of Prof. Nair confirmed.
She reminded the participants of the workshop that the debates on decolonization in the university took an important turn with the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’-movement of 2015. It was especially the students who first exposed the continued impacts of historical injustices and institutional racism, power imbalances and abuse. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the global spread of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) movement in 2020 brought another important impulse. Prof. Nair accentuated the need to consider what we teach, to include silenced and obscured history and to actively engage with non-Western forms of knowledge, to redress epistemological imbalances and question the very canons upon which European education is depended. The vision of decolonization rests upon critical scrutiny, and university can be a space for radical thought.
Among the challenges to decolonization at present, Prof. Nair named the international market for global education. Giving the example of the United Kingdom, she stated that once a privilege, university education has nowadays entered the free market and become commodified, so that universities have become fee paying institutions that are driven by profit and primarily charged with providing skills for employability. Prof. Nair stated education as a civil right (human and planetary right) and not a capital acquisition. The overriding neoliberal contexts within which universities operate thus turned into ongoing and renewed forms of imperialism that threaten to engulf academic and intellectual freedoms. Also, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has opened, across disciplines, further dilemmas as technology serves many purposes and empowers many ideological fronts. There are many at the moment still unseen implications of AI with regard to the Global South and social (in)justice, namely in what concerns research’s integrity. Thus the struggle for human and planetary justice needs to react to these issues, and the same is true for the efforts to preserve academic integrity and academic freedom. Still, the movements of solidarity against oppression are connecting universities in solidarity, and are student-led. Referring back to the empirical and to student-led action, she cited the ongoing student protests at campuses across the world in the name of solidarity for decolonization. Through such cooperation major ideological and systemic change can be conceived. Prof. Nair referred to the book “Empires of the Mind. The Colonial Past and the Politics of the Present” to underline the fact that the transition between the five phases of decolonization, discussed in the book[1], is not a smooth one, and highlighting the need to take decolonial action. The speech concluded with an appeal for solidarity to those who dare to dream differently.
The second keynote, ‘Legal studies from an intercultural and collaborative perspective – experiences from Erasmus+ capacity building projects in Latin America’ by Prof. Silvia Bagni (University of Bologna), brought forward some examples of good practices of cooperation with Latin American universities in the framework of three Erasmus+ ‘Capacity Building in Higher Education’ (CBHE) projects (‘OPTIN’, ‘REMOVE’, and ‘DEMOS’). Prof. Bagni outlined the challenges to the efforts to build interdisciplinary and intercultural study programmes that could harmoniously mix the skills and competences within the staff participating in the project, and give the opportunity of mutual learning for both European and Latin American partners. She mentioned areas in which the knowledge and skills of Latin American partners were extremely important – such as the study of the rights of nature; the research of migrations; and the study of populism. Regarding the implementation of the projects, Prof. Bagni emphasised the importance of having participatory management structures, to jointly co-develop the project deliverables (articles, teaching materials), and to organise moments of restitution with the project’s target groups. She also offered some critical perspectives both on the overall objectives of the CBHE programme and on the technical rules that govern these projects, such the financing or the fact that all countries from Global South are considered equal within E+ schemes. She proposed to shift the methodology of EACEA international cooperation strategy from ‘Capacity Building’ to ‘Mutual Learning’.
Next, four examples of ‘decolonization in practice’ at European universities were presented.
The first of the case studies of good practices presented, “Decolonizing scientific collections”, was delivered online by António Carmo Gouveia (University of Coimbra). It outlined the richness and variety of natural history collections of the University of Coimbra, stemming from former colonies in Africa (Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe), but also from Brazil, India, Macao and East-Timor, housed in several institutions, such as the Science Museum, the Herbarium, or the Botanic Garden. These collections have been long disconnected from their origin, so that it is sometimes difficult to recognize colonial origins and contexts and violence associated, since the natural sciences are seen as more benign. Prof. Carmo Gouveia concluded that the University of Coimbra has both ethical and scientific responsibility to initiate a discussion on decolonising the scientific collections under its care. He narrated the progress of the discussion on decolonizing these “invisible” collections, and the fact that the public debate in Portugal is still critical on matters such as restitution and repatriation, and that these attitudes are present even within academia. He appealed to the audience that in spite of these attitudes, the university should not be afraid of the commitment and ethical obligation to change the way we deal with this sensible heritage. He also proposed some paths for the future, such as the promotion of biodiversity through the natural historical collections; digitalization and open access to the digitised collections (for instance, the database ‘Plant Letters[2]‘), and the promotion of the notion of shared stewardship (partnership in the creation of the herbarium of São Tomé and Príncipe and the Botanical Garden of the University of Lúrio, Mozambique, as good examples). Finally, Prof. Carmo Gouveia highlighted the need to expand to diversify the university narratives, to engage other voices (such as local actors and descendents) and to promote collaborative efforts. Decolonising natural history collections must be an inclusive and enduring process, anchored in continuous learning and sharing, allowing for improvements and responding to the changing expectations of the actors involved.
The second case, “Dealing with complex pasts”, was presented by Markéta Křížová (Charles University). It dealt, first, with concerted efforts of several universities represented in the Coimbra Group to deal jointly with the “uncomfortable” legacies of the past of colonialism, but also authoritarianism and modernization. This legacy imprinted itself both in tangible and intangible heritage of European universities, be it in the museum collections, the university buildings and campuses, or the specific intellectual traditions. The initiative has so far resulted in the Horizon Europe application (under the leadership of University of Utrecht) and open-access volume in preparation (to be published by Edinburgh University Press). But the most important result is the fact that through joint action, there is a chance to start the process of change even at universities that have so far not paid attention to these aspects of their histories. In her presentation, prof. Krizova presented an example of this change process within the Hrdlička Museum of Man at Charles University in Prague. Founded in 1937 as a museum of anthropology, the museum retains the spirit of colonial complicity and Eurocentric narrative of the development of humankind. The efforts to change this attitude have so far been prevented by the prevailing “colonial innocence” discourse in the Czech Republic, both in the public domain and in academia. Turning point for the debates on decolonization in the Czech Republic was the year 2015, when the migration crisis started and the Czech society and Czech representatives responded negatively to the calls for solidarity, precisely with the argument of non-participation of Czechs in colonial atrocities. It is only the younger generations of scholars and the students who raised the issues of decolonisation. With respect to the Hrdlička Museum of Man, with the backing of partner universities from the Coimbra network, it became finally possible to start the debate about changes in the exhibition and the attitude towards the human remains in the collections.
The third case study focused on “Language as an instrument of colonial power” and was presented by Rebeca Hernández (University of Salamanca). Starting with the excellent program of Spanish language at that university, and with reference to the first grammar of Spanish language by Elio Antonio de Nebrija (1492), she evoked Nebrija’s famous pronouncement that language was a “companion to empire”. Nebrija’s work not only marked a significant milestone in linguistic studies, but played a crucial role in the conception of Spanish as the language of a future empire. Also, this grammar would later pave the way for the writing of the first grammars of Amerindian languages by Spanish men.
The use of language as an instrument of power in European colonial projects has been a central point in the postcolonial and decolonial debates developed in the last decades in the academic context. Language and Empire have gone hand in hand, and the native languages in the colonised territories suffered the consequences of Eurocentered colonialism, as Western languages were used to civilize, introduce architectures of knowledge, and write over the recording and transmission of the different histories, stories, and cultures. Prof. Hernández cited the work of Grada Kilomba to underline the need to decolonize knowledge and the role that language plays in this process. In this context, prof. Hernández presented various practices that aim to challenge the Eurocentric narrative being developed at the University of Salamanca, especially the teaching of indigenous languages and collaborative projects with Latin American partners.
The final case study, “The relationship between the University of Leiden and the colonial and slavery past of the Netherlands”, was delivered by Mara Constantinescu (University of Leiden). It dealt mainly with the institutional and political stance towards the issue of decolonisation, and concretely the involvement of Dutch institutions (including the University of Leiden) in slave trade.
The presentation started with a more general reflection on the recent debates in the Netherlands as to the colonial past. At Leiden University these debates have caught force since the massive Black Lives Matter protests. The question of the involvement in colonialisation and slave trade has been taken on as fundamental and definitory for the institutional identity of the University of Leiden. In 2023, the Executive Board decided the formation and funding of a research group that would investigate the relationship between the University of Leiden and the colonial and slavery past of the Netherlands. The group’s main focus is to respond to the following questions: i) How did our academic community position itself in relation to people who were robbed of their freedom? ii) What role has the University played as an educational institution with regard to colonialism and the slavery system? iii) How can the University best handle its special collections? Researchers (PhD students and Post-Doctoral researchers) from outside of the University of Leiden were hired to study these questions. Mara Constantinescu explained that, using this as a starting point and actively considering the academic community’s voices in addressing the impact of its past on present power relations, the aim was to create a framework for constant self-reflection and an environment where not only reflection, but action is made possible. This conversation does include ties with the fossil fuel industry and students’ protests in support of a cease fire in the Israel – Palestine war. Constantinescu ended her presentation by stressing that the exercise of decolonization is also a challenge for the colonised.
The final part of the workshop was dedicated to the interactive discussion under the joint title Challenges for the future. While numerous questions were posed and debated, there were several clusters of topics that were addressed. First there was the issue of the democratisation of knowledge (including the language), and the means to truly give voice (but not force the expression) to all those involved. Also, the Eurocentric knowledge production was flagged as an important topic in the decolonisation process, together with the question of ‘we/they’ and the forced dichotomies that stood at the base of the colonial world system.
The recommendations accentuated the need to truly listen; to realize the complexity of the issues and actors involved and resist the urge for quick answers and solutions; and to address both the highest management of the universities and the general public.
The unanimous recommendation was to continue the debate on different forums, and to include the topic of decolonisation among the core transversal topics within the Coimbra Group. One of them was how to communicate such sensitive issues to the general public – perhaps coordinating with Research Support Officers Working Group.
Coimbra Group Co-organisers:
CG WG Heritage: Marketa Krizova (Charles University)
CG WG Global Partnerships: Katia Cardoso (Coimbra University), Piet Wostyn (KU Leuven)
CG WG Latin America: Edoardo Balletta (University of Bologna), Omar Garcia (Trinity College Dublin), Kirsi Korpela (University of Turku), Mara Constantinescu (University of Leiden)
[1] Poka Laenui_5 key stages of decolonization: “ 1) Rediscovery and Recovery, 2) Mourning, 3) Dreaming, 4) Commitment, and 5) Action. Each phase can be experienced at the same time or in various combinations. Like the steps of colonization, these phases of decolonization do not have clear demarcations between each other.”