Unsettling Eurocentrism in the Westernized University

Julie Cupples is Professor of Human Geography and Cultural Studies at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her current research is focused on indigenous and Afro-descendant media activism in Central America and Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the author of Latin American Development (2013) and co-author of Communications/Media/Geographies (2017) and Shifting Nicaraguan Mediascapes: Authoritarianism and the Struggle for Social Justice (2018).Ramón Grosfoguel is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and a senior researcher at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris, France. He has published many articles on the political economy of the world system and on Caribbean migrations to Western Europe and the United States. He is author of Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspective (2003) and co-editor of Latin@s in the World System: Decolonization Struggles in the 21st Century US Empire (2005) and Decolonizing the Westernized University (2016).

"This book takes the critique of neoliberalism and higher education far beyond elite nostalgia for a pristine intellectual past. Situating the terms of contemporary engagement vis-à-vis the westernized university's deep colonial legacies, Cupples and Grosfoguel curate a stunningly diverse set of contributions that scope out what it might actually mean to decolonize research and teaching. This book is recommended reading for all those who wish to think differently about the cultivation of knowledge in our crisis-prone era." — Professor Robbie Shilliam, Queen Mary University, London, UK"Across the globe, students and staff are calling for the decolonisation of universities. Too often, that call is heard by university leadership as a need for non-threatening diversity initiatives or, worse, an attack on free speech. This important edited volume sets the record straight. To decolonise the university is to struggle to make real different kinds of social relations based not on domination and exploitation but on critical and collaborative knowledge production for epistemic justice."— Professor Akwugo Emejulu, University of Warwick, UK

• 1. Introduction: Coloniality Resurgent, Coloniality Interrupted 2. The University as Branch Plant Industry 3. The White University: A Platform of Subjectification/Subjugation 4. Can the Master’s Tools Dismantle the Master’s Lodge? Negotiating Postcoloniality in the Neoliberal University 5. Black Studies in the Westernized University: The Interdisciplines and the Elision of Political Economy 6. Black Feminist Contributions to Decolonizing the Curriculum 7. Denaturalizing Settler-Colonial Logics in International Development Education in Canada 8. Planetary Urbanisation and Postcolonial Geographies: What Directions for Critical Urban Theory? 9. Decolonizing Legal Studies: A Latin Americanist Perspective 10. The Challenges of Being Mapuche at University 11. Learning from Mayan Feminists’ Interpretations of Buen Vivir 12. Other Knowledges, Other Interculturalities: Colonial Difference, Epistemological Bias, and Eurocentrism in Intercultural Dialogue 13. Poetical, Ethical and Political Dimensions of Indigenous Language Practices in Colombia 14. Surpassing Epistemic Hierarchies: A Dialogue Between Expanded Art Practices and Human Scale Development 15. "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité": Debunking the Myth of Egalitarianism in French Education 16. Dismantling Eurocentrism in the French History of Chattel Slavery and Racism 17. Beyond the Westernized University: Eurocentrism and International High School Curricula 18. What is Racism? Zone of Being and Zone of Non-Being in the Work of Frantz Fanon and Boaventura De Sousa Santos