Decolonisation is a term that alarms some, and gives hope to others. It is an uncomfortable and often bewildering concept for many New Zealanders. This book seeks to demystify decolonisation using illuminating, real-life examples. By exploring the impact of colonisation on Māori and non-Māori alike, Imagining Decolonisation presents a transformative vision of a country that is fairer for all.

Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West’s direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing ‘morality’ or ‘authenticity’; it suffocates African thought and denies African agency. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò fiercely rejects the indiscriminate application of ‘decolonisation’ to everything from literature, language and philosophy to sociology, psychology and medicine. He argues that the decolonisation industry, obsessed with cataloguing wrongs, is seriously harming scholarship on and in Africa. He finds ‘decolonisation’ of culture intellectually unsound and wholly unrealistic, conflating modernity with coloniality, and groundlessly advocating an open-ended undoing of global society’s foundations. Worst of all, today’s movement attacks its own cause: ‘decolonisers’ themselves are disregarding, infantilising and imposing values on contemporary African thinkers. This powerful, much-needed intervention questions whether today’s ‘decolonisation’ truly serves African empowerment. Táíwò’s is a bold challenge to respect African intellectuals as innovative adaptors, appropriators and synthesisers of ideas they have always seen as universally relevant.

Concise and accessible, this guide provides an overview of the process of British decolonisation. Dr White syntheses recent historical debate by looking at the demise of British imperial power from three main perspectives: the shifting emphases of British imperial policy; the rise of populist, colonial nationalism, and the international political, strategic, and economic environment dominated by the USA and the USSR. The book also positions the British experience within the context of European decolonisation and contains many documents which have only recently become available. Introducing the reader to the key debates it the ideal introductory text on the subject.

This book examines decolonisation and M ori education in Aotearoa New Zealand in ways that seeks to challenge, unsettle and provoke for change. Editors Jessica Hutchings and Jenny Lee-Morgan have drawn together leading M ori writers and intellectuals on topics that are at the heart of a decolonising education agenda, from tribal education initiatives to media issues, food sovereignty, wellbeing, Christianity, tikanga and more. A key premise is that colonisation excludes holistic and M ori experiences and ways of knowing, and continues to assert a deep influence on knowledge systems and ways of living and being, and that efforts to combat its impact must be broad and comprehensive. The book presents a kaupapa M ori and decolonised agenda for M ori education. The writers put kaupapa M ori into practice through a p r kau (narrative) approach to explore the diverse topics in a range of styles. Digital editions in ebook and Kindle versions will be available from 15 October "

In this collection of case studies and stories from the field, South African scholars come together to trade stories on how to decolonise the university Shortly after the giant bronze statue of Cecil John Rhodes came down at the University of Cape Town, student protestors called for the decolonisation of universities. It was a word hardly heard in South Africa’s struggle lexicon and many asked: What exactly is decolonisation? This edited volume brings together the best minds in curriculum theory to address this important question. In the process, several critical questions are raised: Is decolonisation simply a slogan for addressing other pressing concerns on campuses and in society? What is the colonial legacy with respect to curriculum and can it be undone? How is the project of curriculum decolonisation similar to or different from the quest for postcolonial knowledge, indigenous knowledge or a critical theory of knowledge? What does decolonisation mean in a digital age where relationships between knowledge and power are shifting? The book combines strong conceptual analyses with novel case studies of attempts to ‘do decolonisation’ in settings as diverse as South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Mauritius. Such a comparative perspective enables reasonable judgements to be made about the prospects for institutional take-up within the curriculum of century-old universities.

This book charts the previously untold story of the mobility of Indigenous peoples across vast distances, vividly reshaping what is known about decolonisation.