Epistemic Decolonization

European colonization played a major role in the acquisition, formation, and destruction of different ways of knowing. Recently, many scholars and activists have come to ask: Are there ways in which knowledge might be decolonized? Epistemic Decolonization examines a variety of such projects from a critical and philosophical perspective. The book introduces the unfamiliar reader to the wide variety of approaches to the topic at hand, providing concrete examples along the way. It argues that the predominant contemporary approach to epistemic decolonization leads one into various intractable theoretical and practical problems. The book then closely investigates the political and scientific work of Frantz Fanon and Amílcar Cabral, demonstrating how their philosophical commitments can help lead one out of the practical and theoretical issues faced by the current, predominant orientation, and concludes by forging links between their work and that of some contemporary feministepistemologists.

“D.A. Wood brilliantly accomplishes what critique at its best understands as its task: making explicit the radical intent of a political and intellectual enterprise. Like the larger whole, decolonization is a complex enterprise dependent for its success on a family of foundational and situated conceptions of ontology, transcendence and immanence, truth, and justification that inform the work of anticolonial theoreticians and activists. Wood helps us to understand the strengths and misadventures of rival versions of the project of epistemic decolonization. In the sphere of knowledge production as in the larger historical action, replacing the colonizer has nothing to do with either ‘nauseating mimicry’ nor an uncritical return to allegedly primordial forms of thought and practice in the name of difference. Rather, it has everything to do with the inventive re-appropriation of truly shareable epistemic practices. This is an original philosophical inquiry into a crucial debate of our time.” (Ato Sekyi-Otu, Emeritus Professor of Social and Political Thought, York University, author of Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays)

“This book highlights the myriad ways in which colonialism and imperialism not only shape what we think we know about the world, but even the very ways in which we come to know it. Wood describes how power relations based on nation, class, race, and gender inequality affect our comprehension while, at the same time, he advocates an emancipatory theory of knowledge that recognizes the possibility of applying scientific methods to the resolution of social problems. The book is a superbly written and absorbing study that rigorously upholds the gains of intersectionality theory within the framework of a critical and materialist philosophy of social progress. This book is highly recommended for all of us concerned with decolonization of the human mind.” (Zak Cope, author of The Wealth of (Some) Nations: Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Transfer and co-editor of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism)

D.A. Wood teaches philosophy at Dillard University and Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA