The 2017 RGS‐IBG chair's theme: decolonising geographical knowledges, or reproducing coloniality?

Abstract

The theme for the chair's plenaries at the 2017 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) (RGS-IBG) Annual Conference is 'Decolonising geographical knowledges: opening geography out to the world'. This commentary explains why this pursuit of critical consciousness via decolonial thinking could do more harm than good. We show how the emphasis on decolonising geographical knowledges rather than structures, institutions and praxis reproduces coloniality, because it recentres non-Indigenous, white and otherwise privileged groups in the global architecture of knowledge production. It is argued that an effective decolonial movement within geography must recognise the intersectionality of indigeneity and race, and necessitates that the terms on which the discipline starts debates about decolonisation and decoloniality are determined by those racialised as Indigenous and non-white by coloniality.

A Conversation with Gloria Wekker

“…This connects to recent work on decolonizing academia ( Esson et al., 2017 ) that discusses the difficulty of decolonizing knowledge without also shifting the demographics of institutional power. If those academics with tenured positions remain overwhelmingly white and non‐indigenous, can you speak of decolonization?…”

Rediscovering other geographical traditions

“…They are also confirming that geography was a science attracting various kinds of subversive, progressive, and unorthodox authors: Therefore, it embeds in its paths values of cosmopolitanism, pluralism, and difference, allowing critical geographers to be sometimes proud, and not only ashamed, of their disciplinary tradition. This has outstanding repercussion on contemporary agendas: Including in the discipline actors, places, languages, and practices which were formerly marginalised, OGTs can decisively contribute to the task of decolonising geography and of rendering it more open to differences, as often solicited in the last years (Esson, Noxolo, Baxter, Daley, & Byron, ; Radcliffe, ).…”

Decolonial education and geography: Beyond the 2017 Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers annual conference

“…In her article Decolonising Geographical Knowledges , Radcliffe () overviews decolonial literatures and suggests that “decolonising geography socially and institutionally is […] an uphill struggle to confront and dismantle [what Derickson (, 236) calls] the ‘unbearable whiteness of geography.’” While she asks questions about possible shapes and forms of geographers' future multi‐epistemic fluency, Noxolo () questions the very possibility and politics of the decolonial process. Together with other members of the RACE working group (Race, Culture and Equality Working Group of the RGS‐IBG), she offers a critique of the 2017 RGS‐IBG conference's theme (Esson, Noxolo, Baxter, Daley, & Byron, ). To them, a “pursuit of critical consciousness via decolonial thinking could do more harm than good” (Esson et al, , p. 384).…”

“…Together with other members of the RACE working group (Race, Culture and Equality Working Group of the RGS‐IBG), she offers a critique of the 2017 RGS‐IBG conference's theme (Esson, Noxolo, Baxter, Daley, & Byron, ). To them, a “pursuit of critical consciousness via decolonial thinking could do more harm than good” (Esson et al, , p. 384). Drawing on Tuck and Yang () and Rivera Cusicanqui (), the RACE group underlines that decolonial efforts must go far beyond a mere inclusion of non‐Western knowledges into our curricula.…”

“…Drawing on Tuck and Yang () and Rivera Cusicanqui (), the RACE group underlines that decolonial efforts must go far beyond a mere inclusion of non‐Western knowledges into our curricula. They argue that decolonising geography must be focused on structures, institutions and praxis, and that “the terms on which the discipline starts debates about decolonisation and decoloniality are determined by those racialized as indigenous and non‐white by coloniality” (Esson et al, , p. 384). Similarly, Baldwin (, p. 329) insists that

the RGS‐IBG conference risks reproducing the very disciplinary privilege it seeks to unsettle by recentering “white” academics as the agents of something called “decolonising geographical knowledge”, while marginalising Indigenous scholars and activists at the forefront of struggles for decolonisation.

He suggests that the conference's theme should be an opportunity for geographers to become more critical of our own “moves to innocence” and rethink what democracy might mean for contemporary universities.…”