SGO9210 – Emancipating knowledges and socionatures: anticolonialism and decolonisation debates
Course content
Calls for decolonising our practices and scholarship are growing from around the world. Sub Altern Studies, which emerged in South Asia over forty years ago, laid important foundations for rethinking the conceptual and methodological basis of historical and political analyses. Latin American activist groups and scholars are now at the forefront of articulating what taking an anticolonial approach to scholarship and socionatural change might look like. In other parts of the world, calls for decolonisation are strong, but with somewhat different emphases and vocabularies. In this course, we read across conversations from different parts of the world on resisting epistemological hegemonies. We emphasise situating conversations in their historical and geopolitical context and asking how these conversations demand that knowledges produced in Global North universities need to take seriously these critiques. These conversations lay a foundation for new imaginaries for an emancipated world.
Course leaders:
Andrea J. Nightingale is Professor of Human Geography, University of Oslo and Research Fellow, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Her current research passions seek to account for power and politics within dynamic and unpredictable environmental change. Her interests cross between climate change adaptation and transformation debates; collective action and state formation; the nature-society nexus; political violence in natural resource governance; and feminist work on emotion and subjectivity in relation to development, transformation, collective action and cooperation. She has worked in Nepal for over thirty years on natural resource governance and maintains a vibrant research collaboration there. Her work has expanded in the last ten years to collaborate on projects in Kenya, Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Peru. While living in Scotland, she did research on in-shore fisheries management. Her recent book is Environment and Sustainability in a Globalizing World, Routledge, 2019.
Dr. Rahul Ranjan is a Political Anthropologist who currently holds an appointment as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the "Riverine Rights" project funded by the Research Council of Norway and based at the Oslo Metropolitan University. His book "The Political Life of Memory" will be published by the Cambridge University Press in the early Spring of next year. He recently edited "At the Crossroads of Rights" (Routledge 2022), which presents collective writing on the advocacy of human and forest rights in India.
Broadly, his work is on the intersection of emotion, climate change, rivers and disasters. He has worked in Jharkhand for over half a decade and has been working in the western Himalayas for the past three years. Using narratives as a structuring tool, Rahul's work demands radical attention to care, kindness and the importance of stories in the changing world.
Guest lecturers:
Aby Séne, assisstant professor, Clemson University
Isabel Kamlongera, associate professor, Oslo Metropolitan University
Liisa Rávná Finborg, post-doctoral fellow, Tampere University, Mediated Arctic Geographies
Learning outcome
The course will provide students with a broad overview of emerging global debates around anti-colonialism and what it means to decolonise our research. Students apply critical theoretical approaches to think together about how to write and design research methodologies in anti-colonial ways. The lectures will combine the creative use of texts and visual materials (documentary) to understand the situated forms of knowledges upon which scholarship rests. It enables participants to engage with conceptual lenses useful to case studies in non-western worlds. They will acquire skills to engage with their peers through closed group reading and receive feedback by mentors/peers.
Admission
The course is open to all PhD students who are doing research on questions that broadly pertain to the course themes. Although most suited to students working in the traditions of geography, anthropology, sociology, environmental humanities, political science, cultural theory and related disciplines, applicants from all disciplinary backgrounds will be considered. Likewise, applications are welcomed from across the globe, and from researchers looking at anti-colonialism in any form. Applicants can apply at any stage of the PhD process, but may find it most rewarding if they have already conducted some of their own empirical research.
Ph.D.-students at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography register for the course in StudentWeb.
Interested participants outside the Department of Sociology and Human Geography shall fill out this application form.
The deadline for registration is 1st March 2023. After the deadline shall all applicants receive a note about if the application is approved.
Teaching
Combination of lectures and small group discussions combined with documentaries and draft paper discussions.
The course is run over 5 days May 8-12, 2023. It is expected that students will have read for the course BEFORE the in-person sessions begin. It is also required to turn in a paper draft before the course begins.
Maximum enrolment: 20 students
Schedule:
Place: Harriet Holters Building room 301
Monday
9.00– 11.00 Introduction to global anticolonialism and decolonisation debates. Andrea Nightingale and Rahul Ranjan
Escobar, Arturo. ‘WORLDS AND KNOWLEDGES OTHERWISE: The Latin American Modernity/Coloniality Research Program’. Cultural Studies 21, no. 2–3 (March 2007): 179–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162506.
11.00-11.15 Break
11.15-13.00 Decolonising debates origins and activism: voices from Latin America. Andrea Nightingale
Blaser, Mario. ‘Ontology and Indigeneity: On the Political Ontology of Heterogeneous Assemblages’. Cultural Geographies 21, no. 1 (1 January 2014): 49–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474012462534.
Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822371779-001. Introduction
13.00 - 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 16.00 Anti-colonialism in practice: writing new narratives. Andrea Nightingale and Rahul Ranjan
(suggested)
Mignolo, Walter D., and Madina V. Tlostanova. ‘Theorizing from the Borders: Shifting to Geo- and Body-Politics of Knowledge’. European Journal of Social Theory 9, no. 2 (1 May 2006): 205–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431006063333.
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Tuesday
9.00 – 10.45 Politics of Knowledge: Colonial Geographies and Environment. Rahul Ranjan
Ritodhi Chakraborty and Pasang Yangjee Sherpa. ‘From climate adaptation to climate justice: Critical reflections on the IPCC and Himalayan climate knowledges’, Climatic Change (2021) 167:49
Gurminder K. Bhambra and Peter Newell. ‘More than a metaphor: ‘climate colonialism’ in perspective’, Global Social Challenges, vol XX, 1–9.
Mabel Denzin Gergan (2017) Living with Earthquakes and Angry Deities at the Himalayan Borderlands, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 107:2, 490-498, DOI:10.1080/24694452.2016.1209103
10.45-11.00 Break
11.00-13.00 Thinking with Anticolonial tools: research design Andrea Nightingale
Coombes, Brad, Jay T. Johnson, and Richard Howitt. ‘Indigenous Geographies III:
Methodological Innovation and the Unsettling of Participatory Research’. Progress in Human Geography 38, no. 6 (1 December 2014): 845–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132513514723.
Leeuw, Sarah de, Emilie S. Cameron, and Margo L. Greenwood. ‘Participatory and Community-Based Research, Indigenous Geographies, and the Spaces of Friendship: A Critical Engagement’. The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe Canadien 56, no. 2 (2012): 180–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2012.00434.x
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. ‘Decolonizing Methodologies’. Bloomsbury. Accessed 21 October 2022. Introduction and chapter 1 https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/decolonizing-methodologies-9781786998132/
Whyte, Kyle Powys. ‘On the Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge as a Collaborative Concept: A Philosophical Study’. Ecological Processes 2, no. 1 (5 April 2013): 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/2192-1709-2-7.
(suggested)
Burman, Anders. ‘Are Anthropologists Monsters? An Andean Dystopian Critique of Extractivist Ethnography and Anglophone-Centric Anthropology’. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 8, no. 1–2 (March 2018): 48–64. https://doi.org/10.1086/698413.
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-16.00 Anticolonialism in action: emancipating knowledges. Andrea Nightingale and Rahul Ranjan
(suggested)
Daigle, Michelle, and Juanita Sundberg. ‘From Where We Stand: Unsettling Geographical Knowledges in the Classroom’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 42, no. 3 (2017): 338–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12201.
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Wednesday
9.00-10.45 Subaltern Studies and conversations on decolonialism in Asia. Rahul Ranjan and Andrea Nightingale
Jesus Dionisio, Maria Rita de, Angus H. Macfarlane, Dean P. Walker, Sonja L. Macfarlane, Melissa Derby, Ruiha Caldwell, Jude Pani, and Rawiri Waru. ‘Ngā Mātāpono e Rua: Stories of Co-Creation for Bicultural Spatial Governance in Aotearoa New Zealand’. New Zealand Geographer 77, no. 2 (2021): 76–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/nzg.12299.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988). "Can the Subaltern Speak?". In: Nelson, Cary; Grossberg, Lawrence (eds.). Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan. pp. 271–313.
(suggested)
Guha, Ranajit. ‘The Prose of Counter-Insurgency’. In Selected Subaltern Studies, edited by Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Spivak, 45–84. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Kawharu, Merata. ‘Kaitiakitanga: A Maori Anthropological Perspective of the Maori Socio-Environmental Ethic of Resource Management’. Journal of the Polynesian Society 109 (1 January 2000): 349–70.
10.45-11.00 Break
11.00-13.00 Anthropocene in Himalayas: Dams, Disasters and Development Rahul Ranjan
Mona Bhan. Assembling the Anthropocene in “Climate without Nature: A Critical Anthropology of the Anthropocene”, Cambridge University Press.
Nayanika Mathur. ‘Beastly identification in India: The government of big cats in the Anthropocene’, AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 0, No. 0, pp. 1–13, 2021
Ritodhi Chakraborty, Mabel D Gergan, Pasang Y Sherpa and Costanza Rampini. ‘A plural climate studies framework for the Himalayas’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Volume 51, August 2021, Pages 42-54
(suggested)
Radhika Govindrajan. “Introduction” in Animal Intimacies Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas (University of Chicago)
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00- 16.00 Writing and Methodological challenges from an anticolonial perspective Andrea Nightingale
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Thursday
9.00 – 11.00 Guest speaker, Isabel Kamlongera, Oslo Met. Decolonising methodologies and research practice.
Andrew Baldwin and Bruce Erickson. ‘Introduction: Whiteness, coloniality, and the Anthropocene’, EPD: Society and Space 2020, Vol. 38(1) 3–11
Whyte, Kyle. ‘Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene’. English Language Notes 55, no. 1 (2017): 153–62. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/711473.
(suggested)
Pillay, S; The Problem of Colonialism: Assimilation, Difference, and Decolonial Theory in Africa. Critical Times 1 December 2021; 4 (3): 389–416. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/26410478-9355201
Chilisa B (2012) Postcolonial indigenous research paradigms. Indigenous research methodologies. 98-127.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni SJ (2018) Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and decolonization. Routledge. The intro chapter is available online
Andrea J. Nightingale, Noémi Gonda and Siri H. Eriksen. ‘Affective adaptation = effective transformation? Shifting the politics of climate change adaptation and transformation from the status quo’, WIREs Clim Change. 2021.
11.00-11.15 Break
11.15-13.00 Anti-colonial research praxis: methodology and engaged research. Andrea Nightingale
(suggested)
Dhillon, Carla M. ‘Indigenous Feminisms: Disturbing Colonialism in Environmental Science Partnerships’. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 6, no. 4 (1 October 2020): 483–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649220908608.
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00- 15.00 Anticolonialism and Racism: conversations from Africa. Andrea Nightingale
Daley, Patricia O., and Amber Murrey. ‘Defiant Scholarship: Dismantling Coloniality in Contemporary African Geographies’. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 43, no. 2 (2022): 159–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12422.
Gwaravanda, Ephraim. ‘Epistemic (In-)Justice and African (Under-) Development’, 185–204, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh9vz16.10.
Táíwò, Olúfemi. Against Decolonization: Taking African Agency Seriously. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. Introduction
(suggested)
Sylvia Tamale’s Afro-Feminism and Decolonization. Daraja Press, 2020 Chapter 3.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press 2005 (1961). Introduction.
Táíwò, Olúfemi. Against Decolonization: Taking African Agency Seriously. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. chapter 1
15.00-16.00 Guest speaker Aby Sené, Decolonising Conservation in Africa (by Zoom)
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Friday
9.00-10.45 Guest speaker, Liisa-Ravna Finbog. Siida and Meahcci – the question of land and sovereignty in a Sámi context
Coombes, Brad, Jay T. Johnson, and Richard Howitt. ‘Indigenous Geographies II: The Aspirational Spaces in Postcolonial Politics – Reconciliation, Belonging and Social Provision’. Progress in Human Geography 37, no. 5 (1 October 2013): 691–700. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132512469590.
Sarah Hunt. ‘Ontologies of Indigeneity: The Politics of Embodying a Concept’. Cultural Geographies 21, no. 1 (1 January 2014): 27–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474013500226.
Todd, Zoe. ‘An Indigenous Feminist’s Take On The Ontological Turn: “Ontology” Is Just Another Word For Colonialism’. Journal of Historical Sociology 29, no. 1 (2016): 4–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12124.
(suggested)
Indigenous research methodologies in Sámi and Global Contexts. (Particularly chapter 5)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1v7zbk4
Sámi Research in Transition: Knowledge, Politics and Social Change.
Through our stories we resist: Decolonial perspectives on south Saami history, indigeneity and rights.
Lawrence, Rebecca. ‘Internal Colonisation and Indigenous Resource Sovereignty: Wind Power Developments on Traditional Saami Lands’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32, no. 6 (1 December 2014): 1036–53. https://doi.org/10.1068/d9012.
10-45-11.00 Break
11.00-13.00 Indigenous scholarship and critiques of academic ways of knowing Andrea Nightingale
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-16.00 Bringing it all together. Final conversations on decolonising our knowledges and research Andrea Nightingale and Rahul Ranjan
Examination
The course earns 5 ECTS. Students are expected to read course material and write a 4000-word essay BEFORE the course begins. Students will receive feedback on the essay during the course. A final version of the essay is due June 1st, 2023.
To pass students must: turn in a draft essay by April 24, 2023, participate in all lectures and group discussions, provide feedback on essays written by peers, turn in a final draft of the essay June 1st, 2023.
Essay topic: Drawing from your own PhD research, discuss how anti-colonial debates are relevant for your work. You can present an on-going article or chapter draft that engages decolonial thinking, discuss methodological challenges to implementing anti-colonial research, or reflect on how your work changes when taking an anti/de-colonial perspective.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about the grading system.