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Decolonial Theories

In this session of the “Children in Theory” series, Lucia Rabello de Castro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) introduces the main tenets of applying a Decolonial approach as a theoretical framework. She later discusses with Felipe Salvador Grisolia (State University of Rio de Janeiro) the application of the framework to studies of childhood and children’s rights.

What are Decolonial Theories?

Rabello de Castro, L. (2023). What are Decolonial Theories? In N. Brando, D. Lawson and H. Stalford (eds.) Children in Theory: Theoretical Methods and Approaches to the Study of Childhood. Online Masterclass Series. University of Liverpool.

In this session, Lucia Rabello de Castro introduces Decolonial theories as a method for the study of childhood, what are decolonial theories, their main normative commitments, and forms of application to research.

The session looks at the issue of colonial relations between the Global North and the Global South in terms of knowledge production and consumption, and explores the mechanisms applied by South American and African scholars to counter these pressures. It highlights the value of theorising from the South; the value new ways of thinking, knowing rooted in the Global South can bring to studies of human groups and social justice.

She explores the mechanisms through which capitalist structures have taken over the production of knowledge globally, and how a Decolonial lens can work as an act of resistance that aims to counter “universalist” understandings of childhood and children’s rights.

 Key issues addressed:

  • Why Decolonial Theories?
  • Historical Sources of Decolonial Thought
  • Major Strands of Decolonial Research.
  • The Global South Problematising Universalism.
  • The Values of Decolonial Theories: Delinking; Localisation; Critique.

Decolonial Theories and Childhood

Salvador Grisolia, F. and Rabello de Castro, L. (2023). Decolonial Theories and Childhood. In N. Brando, D. Lawson and H. Stalford (eds.) Children in Theory: Theoretical Methods and Approaches to the Study of Childhood.  Online Masterclass Series. University of Liverpool.

Springing from the introduction to decolonial theories, Felipe Salvador and Lucia Rabello de Castro discuss the potential of Decolonial thought as a critical tool, looking at the forms and methods of putting this into practice. It engages with issues related to why should we critique universalist approaches to childhood, and reflects on the difficulties and values of decolonial research in relation to childhood and children’s lives. Among the issues addressed are the following questions:

  • How do Decolonial Theories work as critical tools for childhood studies?
  • What are the sources and reasons for applying a decolonial perspective to research on childhood?
  • What is the relationship between Global North and Global South in terms of knowledge production and consumption?
  • What assets do Decolonial Theories provide to children themselves?

Further References and Sources

  • The Decolonial Critique: Global Network linking academics and students interested in decolonial theories and approaches. It has further sources on using decoloniality as a research method.

Literature on Decoloniality and Political Theory:

  • Comaroff, J. & Comaroff, J. (2012). Teoria desde el Sur. México: Siglo
  • Connell, R. (2008). Southern Theory. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
  • Coulthard, G. S. (2014). Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Escobar, A. (2007) Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise. Cultural Studies, 21:2- 3, 179-210.
  • Escobar, A. (2001). Culture sits in Places: reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization. Political Geography 20, 139–174
  • Gordon, J.A. (2014). Creolizing political theory: Reading Rousseau Through Fanon. New York: Fordham University Press.
  • Kothari, A. Salleh, A., Escobar, A., Demaria, F., Acosta, A. (2019) (Eds.). Pluriverse a Post Developmental Dictionary. New Delhi: Tulika Books.
  • Kothari, U. (2006). Critiquing Race and Racism in Development Discourse and Practice, Progress in Development Studies 6 (1): 1-7.
  • Mignolo, Walter (2007) Delinking, Cultural Studies, 21:2, 449 -514.
  • Mignolo, W. (2007ª). El pensamento decolonial: desprendimiento y apertura. Un manifesto. In S. Castro-Gómez & R. Grosfoguel (ed.), El giro decolonial. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre Editores.
  • Murrey, A. (2016). Slow dissent and the emotional geographies of resistance. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 37, 224-248.
  • Ndlovu, M. (2019). Performing Indigeneity. Spectacles of culture and identity in coloniality. London: Pluto.
  • Saney, I. (2019). Dreaming revolution: tricontinentalism, anti-imperialism and Third World rebellion. In E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh & P. Daley (eds), Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations 153-167. New York: Routledge.
  • Singh, J. (2019) Decolonizing radical democracy. Contemporary Political Theory 18, 331–356.
  • Chipato, F. & Chandler, D. (2022). Another decolonial world is possible: international studies in an antiblack world. Third World Quarterly 43 (7), 1783-1797.
  • Tuck, E. & Yang, K.W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1 (1): 1-40.
  • Young, R. (2005). From Bandung to the Tricontinental. Historein 5, 11-21.

On Decolonial Theories and Childhood:

  • Castro, L. R. de (2020). Decolonising child studies: development and globalism as orientalist perspectives. Third World Quarterly DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2020.1788934
  • Castro, L. R. de (2020). Why global? Children and Childhood from a decolonial perspective. Childhood 27 (1), 48-62.
  • Castro, L. R. de (2022). Righting adults’ wrongs: generationing on the battlefield. A decolonial approach. Childhood 29 (3), 355-370.
  • Castro, L. R. de (2023). Children, Childhoods and Decolonial Theory. In S. Balagopalan, J. Wall & K. Wells (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Theories in Childhood Studies (forthcoming)
  • Nyamu, I. & Wamahiu, S. (2022). What might a decolonial perspective on child
  • protection look like? Childhood 29(3), 423-438.

On Pedagogy, Education and Knowledge:

  • Arday, J. & Mirza, H. (2018). Dismantling Race in Higher Education Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy. London: Palgrave.
  • Freire, P. (1968) Pedagogia do Oprimido. Editora Paz e Terra.
  • Hountondji, Paulin (1990). Recherche et extraversion: éléments pour une sociologie de la Science dans les pays de la péripherie. Africa Development, XV(3-4), 149-158.
  • Mignolo, W. (2011), Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: on (de)coloniality, border thinking and epistemic disobedience, Postcolonial Studies 14(3), 273-283.
  • Murrey, A. (2019). Between appropriation and assassination: Pedagogical disobedience in an era of unfinished decolonization. International Journal of Social Economics 46 (11), 1319-1334.
  • Murrey, A. & Daley, P. (2023). Learning Desobedience: Decolonizing Development Studies. London: Pluto.
  • Okere, Theophilus, Njoku, Chudwudi, & Devisch, René (2011). All knowledge is first of all Local Knowledge. In R. Devisch & F. Nyamnjoh (Eds.), The Postcolonial Turn (pp. 275-296). Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa
  • Rodriguez, C. (2018). Decolonizing Academia. Power, Oppression and Pain. Winnipeg: Fernwood.
  • Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd London: Zed Books.

Decoloniality in Latin America

  • Grandin, G. (ed.) (2010) A century of revolution: insurgent and counterinsurgent violence in Latin America’s long Cold War. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Katz, C. (2008). Las disyuntivas de la izquierda en América Latina. Buenos Aires: Luxembourg.
  • Maraña, M., Dussel, E. & Jáuregui, C. (eds.) (2008). Coloniality at Large. Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Marini, R. M. (1992). América Latina: dependência e integração. Ed. Brasil Urgente.
  • Quijano, A. (2005). Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y America Latina. In E. Lander (ed.) La colonialidad del saber: eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales, 219-264. Buenos Aires: CLACSO/Ciccus.
  • Quijano, A. & Wallerstein, I. (1992). Americanity as a concept or the Americas in the modern world-system. International Social Science Journal, Paris: Unesco, 134, November.
  • Rodriguez, B. (2005). De la esclavitud yanqui a la libertad cubana: U.S. Black Radicals, the Cuban Revolution and the Formation of a Tricontinental Ideology. Radical History 92, 62-87.

Decoloniality in Africa:

  • Mafeje A. Democratic Governance and New Democracy in Africa: Agenda for the Future. Paper presented at the african the Forum for envisioning Africa. April 2002. At: http://www.foresightfordevelopment.org/sobipro/54/222-democraticgovernance-and-new-democracy-in-africa-agenda-for-the-future
  • Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. (2015) Decoloniality as the Future of Africa. History Compass 13/10 (2015): 485–496, 10.1111/hic3.12264
  • Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. (2013). Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa - Myths of Decolonization . Dakar: CODESRIA.
  • Onwuzuruigbo, Ifeanyi (2018). Indigenising Eurocentric sociology: the ‘captive mind’ and five decades of sociology in Nigeria. Current Sociology, 66(6), 831-848.
  • Shivji, I. G. (2013). Democracy and Democratization in Africa: Interrogating Paradigms and Practices. The African Review: A Journal of African Politics, Development and International Affairs 40 (1), 1-13.

This project has been developed by members of the European Children’s Rights Unit with the support of the British Academy’s Newton International Fellowship award No. NIFBA19\190492KU. For more information on the series, please contact Nico Brando.

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