Conceptualising Decolonisation
Corresponding Author(s) : Pamila Gupta
Journal of Higher Education in Africa,
Vol. 23 No. 1 (2025): Journal of Higher Education in Africa: Special Issue on Decolonising Knowledge Production in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts
Abstract
In this article, I first address more general writings on decolonisation as simultaneously an anti-imperialist movement and a human rights emancipatory ideology, before mapping how to go about studying this elusive subject and object. Next, I suggest a series of interventions in this expanding area of scholarship by way of a reflexive practice: I discuss alternative ways to write about decolonisation as both a historical event and an ethnographic moment; attend to the experience of the transfer of state power at the end of colonialism; and focus on decolonisation as involving the mobility of people, ideas and things. Lastly, I provide an overview of what I label ‘textual and visual landscapes of decolonisation’ from the location of Portuguese Africa based on my own research and writing (Gupta 2019), before suggesting the contours of a future critical decolonisation studies.
Keywords
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- "Asif, M.A., Moorman, M., Namakkal, J., and Nikpour, G., (eds), 2025, ‘Decolonization now’, Radical History Review, 153 (October): 1–9.
- Assubuji, R., and Hayes, P., 2013, ‘The political sublime: Reading Kok Nam, Mozambican photographer (1939–2012)’, Kronos, 39(1).
- Betts, R., 1998, Decolonization, London: Routledge.
- Cabral, A., 2007, ‘Essay on Portuguese colonial domination’, in Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings, 2nd edition, compiled and edited by M. Taonezvi and A. Zegeye, transl. M. Wolfers, Pretoria: Unisa Press.
- Chakrabarty, D., 2000, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Chatterjee, P., 1993, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Cooper, F., and Stoler, A.L., 1997, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois
- World, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press."
- "Cooper, F., 1997, ‘The dialectics of decolonization: Nationalism and labor movements in postwar French Africa’, in F. Cooper and A.L. Stoler (eds), Tensions of Empire, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Das, V., 1997, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
- Dirks, N., 2001, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Duara, P., (ed.), 2004, Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then, New York: Routledge.
- Edwards, E., 2010, The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885–1918, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Edwards, E., 1999, ‘Beyond the boundary: A consideration of the expressive in photography and anthropology,’ in Banks, Marcus and Morphy, Howard (eds). Rethinking Visual Anthropology, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Ellis, C., Adams, T., and Bochner, A., 2011, ‘Autoethnography: An overview,’ Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1): 1–12.
- Fanon, F., 1963. The Wretched of the Earth, transl. C. Farrington, New York: Grove Press. Fanon, F., 1965, ‘Algeria unveiled’, in A Dying Colonialism, New York: Monthly
- Review Press.
- Gupta, P., 2007, ‘Mapping Portuguese decolonization in the Indian Ocean: A research agenda’, South African Historical Journal, 57(1): 94–6.
- Gupta, P., 2014, The Relic State: S. Francis Xavier and the Politics of Ritual in Portuguese India, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Gupta, P., 2019, Portuguese Decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: History and Ethnography, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
- Hansen, T.B., and Stepputat, F., (eds), 2001, States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Hayes, P., 2009, ‘Port city and desire: Ricardo Rangel’s photographs of Lourenço Marques, Mozambique (1950s–1960s)’. Unpublished paper.
- Ho, E., 2006, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility Across the Indian Ocean.
- Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Jacobs, J., 1996, Edges of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. London: Routledge. Lee, C., 2010, Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and its Political
- Afterlives. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
- Louis, R., and Robinson, R., 2008. ‘The imperialism of decolonisation’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 22(3): 462–511.
- Nixon, R., 2011, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Nuttall, S., 2009, Entanglement: Literary and Cultural Reflections on Post-Apartheid, Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.
- Wa Thiong’o, N., 1986, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African
- Literature, London: Heinemann."
References
"Asif, M.A., Moorman, M., Namakkal, J., and Nikpour, G., (eds), 2025, ‘Decolonization now’, Radical History Review, 153 (October): 1–9.
Assubuji, R., and Hayes, P., 2013, ‘The political sublime: Reading Kok Nam, Mozambican photographer (1939–2012)’, Kronos, 39(1).
Betts, R., 1998, Decolonization, London: Routledge.
Cabral, A., 2007, ‘Essay on Portuguese colonial domination’, in Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings, 2nd edition, compiled and edited by M. Taonezvi and A. Zegeye, transl. M. Wolfers, Pretoria: Unisa Press.
Chakrabarty, D., 2000, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chatterjee, P., 1993, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cooper, F., and Stoler, A.L., 1997, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois
World, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press."
"Cooper, F., 1997, ‘The dialectics of decolonization: Nationalism and labor movements in postwar French Africa’, in F. Cooper and A.L. Stoler (eds), Tensions of Empire, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Das, V., 1997, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Dirks, N., 2001, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Duara, P., (ed.), 2004, Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then, New York: Routledge.
Edwards, E., 2010, The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885–1918, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Edwards, E., 1999, ‘Beyond the boundary: A consideration of the expressive in photography and anthropology,’ in Banks, Marcus and Morphy, Howard (eds). Rethinking Visual Anthropology, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Ellis, C., Adams, T., and Bochner, A., 2011, ‘Autoethnography: An overview,’ Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1): 1–12.
Fanon, F., 1963. The Wretched of the Earth, transl. C. Farrington, New York: Grove Press. Fanon, F., 1965, ‘Algeria unveiled’, in A Dying Colonialism, New York: Monthly
Review Press.
Gupta, P., 2007, ‘Mapping Portuguese decolonization in the Indian Ocean: A research agenda’, South African Historical Journal, 57(1): 94–6.
Gupta, P., 2014, The Relic State: S. Francis Xavier and the Politics of Ritual in Portuguese India, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Gupta, P., 2019, Portuguese Decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: History and Ethnography, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Hansen, T.B., and Stepputat, F., (eds), 2001, States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hayes, P., 2009, ‘Port city and desire: Ricardo Rangel’s photographs of Lourenço Marques, Mozambique (1950s–1960s)’. Unpublished paper.
Ho, E., 2006, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility Across the Indian Ocean.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Jacobs, J., 1996, Edges of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. London: Routledge. Lee, C., 2010, Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and its Political
Afterlives. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
Louis, R., and Robinson, R., 2008. ‘The imperialism of decolonisation’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 22(3): 462–511.
Nixon, R., 2011, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nuttall, S., 2009, Entanglement: Literary and Cultural Reflections on Post-Apartheid, Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.
Wa Thiong’o, N., 1986, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African
Literature, London: Heinemann."