Perils of performative decolonising in academia & status quo of institutional racism - Reflections from South Asian academics in UK

The topic relates to the questions: What does it mean to be an everyday decolonial activist? and What do unlearning and dis-interpreting mean and involve in the praxis of re-existence and rehumanising? from the lived perspectives of two academics immersed in decolonising activities at a higher education institute. It again feels like a revolutionary time for indigenous, black and minoritised peoples around the world. However, white people are jumping on the bandwagon for decolonising curricula with little understanding of the meaning of decolonising, not only re-centring whiteness by doing so, but also conflating decolonising the curriculum approach with inclusive curriculum or reducing it to antiracist approach to curriculum transformation.

The Rhodes Must Fall movement 2015 in South Africa and, following this, the Fees Must Fall movement in 2016 are calls to action for decolonising universities and university education, deep transformational steps towards destabilising the world order that challenges racial capitalism. These are acts not only of protest but to undo intergenerational harm caused by settler colonialism, moving towards epistemic justice for black, indigenous, and minoritised populations. However, it is now increasingly being co-opted by Equality Diversity Inclusion (EDI)/DEI initiatives and/or performative decolonising activities in the UK higher education sector. Two female academics of South Asian heritage take a deep dive to interrogate this from their lived experiences of decolonising curriculums in academic institutions in the UK, the belly of the beast of colonialism. Aligning with Tuck and Yang’s (2012) premise that decolonisation is not a metaphor but actions to unsettle the dominant hegemonies as decolonising is incommensurable with Western centrism and hence cannot be integrated. The two academics propose reimagining pluriversal possibilities of organising and strategizing to challenge this epistemic violence of co-option, they explore hope and situate global majority epistemes of knowledge in the context of Western imperialism by decentring whiteness from this movement. They will frame their critical discussion by following Smyth’s (1989) reflection framework to create actions for liberatory change:

• Describe — explain meanings of decolonising the curriculum and our experiences in doing this

• Inform — analyse our situations regarding decolonising the curriculum through relevant theory

• Confront — explore how our past and present are shaping our current experience of decolonising the

curriculum

• Reconstruct — reimagine collective activism in academia for decolonising the curriculum.

The framework is relevant when there is a power imbalance, when the person/s reflecting feel

disempowered by the establishment.