CFP: Decolonising the Academy
Somatechnics

In her seminal book, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2013), Linda Tuhiwai Smith outlines how the production of academic disciplines is sustained through colonial practices and the disciplining of Indigenous bodies, knowledges, and ecologies. The development of academic disciplines is linked to the ideologies and practices of modernity, which promise social and civilisational progress. These ‘colonizing knowledges’ (p. 120) serve to re-organise knowledge production in favour of Eurocentrism (p. 122), which centres European perspectives on history, economy, and geopolitics as the dominant way of knowing the world. People who labour in the academy contend with these systems and structures of power. While Indigenous knowledges have been included in academic disciplines, there is much work needed to dismantle the epistemological role of colonising knowledges in organising the administrative, teaching, and research practices of universities. Decolonising the Academy calls for contributions which exemplify the transdisciplinary and critical work of decolonising academic institutions and practices. By foregrounding the material presence of colonising knowledges in a range of academic and university spaces, this special issue seeks to interrogate and reflect on the position of technologies, environments, and bodies in university work – both historically and contemporaneously. Contributions can include but are not limited to:

·      Indigenous research methodologies and pedagogies
·      Cognitive imperialism and audit and research metrics
·      Racial capitalism and theories of precarity
·      Diversity and equity work
·      Decolonising and critical race and whiteness studies pedagogies
·      Algorithmic racism, digital divides, and techno-determinism in university technologies (across administrative, teaching, and research practices)
·      Histories of universities and disciplines in relation to colonialism and imperialism
·      Universities and environmental racism

Abstracts will be considered on a rolling basis until August 31st 2022. Full papers of 6,000-7,000w are due December 1st 2022. Please send abstracts and all inquiries to Dr. Holly Randell-Moon at: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>