Twitter: DeColoniality Now @DeColonialityN
This multidisciplinary initiative engages with coloniality and decoloniality as global phenomena today. We examine transregional processes of interaction, domination, appropriation, contestation, and resistance in light of the asymmetries, hierarchies, and entanglements they engender worldwide.
Started with the European colonialization of the Americas in 1492, coloniality is still ongoing. We understand coloniality as a form of social domination that pertains to the extraction of resources and regimes of knowledge characterizing global asymmetries and epistemologies today. As such, coloniality also prompts counter-currents, resistances, appropriations, and new hegemonies. Decoloniality and the discourses that convey it will thus be focal points of interest.
In analyzing both coloniality and decoloniality, our approach is global, transregional, and comparative. We explore emerging contemporary forms of coloniality, their connections and overlaps with forms of imperial rule, such as the post-Soviet context or Chinese and Indian efforts at regional and transregional expansion.
By assessing the legacy of colonialism throughout Europe from a decolonial perspective, we aim to reverse the prevailing Eurocentric gaze and go beyond regional categories such as “Latin America”, “Eastern Europe”, or “the Middle East”. We thus examine migration and diaspora communities from the perspective of migrants, refugees, and displaced people and critically scrutinize the colonial heritage embodied in many European, and particularly German, academic institutions, museums, collections, disciplines, and epistemologies.
As a project situated at a university in Western Europe, we are dedicated to integrating perspectives from the Global South and East and partners from these regions through project staff, fellowships and joint research and publications.
Disciplines
- Arabic Philosophy
- Archeology
- Catholic Theology
- Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology
- English Linguistics
- English Literature
- Epistemology and Theory of Science
- Forest and Environmental Policy
- German Studies/ Multilingualism
- German Literature; Musicology
- Human Geography
- Islamic Studies
- Linguistics
- Modern History
- Political Science
- Romance Linguistics
- Romance Literature
- Science and Technology Studies
- Slavic Linguistics
- Slavic Literature
- Social and Cultural Anthropology
- Sociology
Coordinators
- Manuela Boatcă, Sociology
- Tim Freytag, Human Geography
- Christian Mair, English Linguistics
- Andreas Mehler, Political Science
- Johanna Pink, Islamic Studies
- Achim Rabus, Slavic Linguistics
- Frieder Vogelmann, Philosophy
Previous and current projects and achievements
- Maria Sybilla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA)
- Graduiertenkolleg 2571 “Imperien: Dynamischer Wandel, Temporalität und nachimperiale Ordnungen”, funded by German Research Foundation (DFG)
- SFB 948 “Helden – Heroisierungen – Heroismen”, funded by German Research Foundation (DFG)
- SFB 1015 “Muße”, funded by German Research Foundation (DFG)
- Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste: Reciprocal, Interdisciplinary, and Transparent: Provenance Research from the Perspective of Restitution in the Colonial Context
- Forschungskolleg “Neues Reisen – Neue Medien”, funded by VolkswagenStiftung
- Conference „Rethinking Europe from the Caribbean: Entanglements and Legacies“ 2018, funded by German Research Foundation (DFG)
- Conference “De-Linking: Critical Thought and Radical Politics” 2019, funded by Volkswagen Foundation
- ERC Grant “The Global Qur’an”
Enabling Structures
- ACT: The Africa Centre for Transregional Research
- Arnold Bergsträsser Institute for Socio-Cultural Research
- Center for Transcultural Asian Studies
- Hermann-Paul-Centrum für Linguistik
- Global Studies Program (GSP)
- Mittelalterzentrum
Events
- 2023: Collaborative Lecture Series:
“2023 Philosophies in the Islamic World: Then and Now” - 1.-2. 06.2023: Workshop:
„Wie weiter mit der politischen Epistemologie? Postkoloniale, feministische, kritische und analytische Erkenntnistheorie im Dialog“ - 05.05. 2023: Book Presentation and Discussion:
“Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance between India and Israel” by Azad Essa - 30.05.2022: Book presentation:
“The Integration Nation: Immigration and Colonial Power in Liberal Democracies by Prof. Adrian Favell” - 29.10.2021: Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Bayreuth): Cognitive Imperialism in African Studies: Reflections on Decolonial Turns
