11/12/2020
fellow medicine/health peeps, committing to using intentional language in every & all settings among every & all audiences is resistance. let’s do that.
I first came across the term “decolonize” thanks to Professor Yvette De Chavez who originally received criticism within her own institution for not including any white authors in a syllabus on American Literature. What I have come to understand is in its application toward academics, or birthwork, or advocacy, it is a focus on intentionally disentangling whitewashed histories, including/dominating people of color on the reading list, diversifying discussions outside of the white narrative, and imagining what a decolonized movement or work could look like if realized. There are steps toward a decolonized goal, but the use of the word itself does not alone reach said goal.
An essay by Nayantara Sheoran Appleton outlines the following outlines these initial steps toward decolonization without misappropriating the word and work:
Here are some alternative suggestions to talk about the work we are doing now, while thinking of a decolonized sovereign nation future. To really keep it simple, I even suggest words start with the letter D.
- Diversify your syllabus and curriculum
- Digress from the cannon
- Decentre knowledge and knowledge production
- Devalue hierarchies
- Disinvest from citational power structures
- Diminish some voices and opinions in meetings, while magnifying others
All of this allows for anti-colonial, post-colonial, and de-colonial work in the academy; but not make claims to a ‘decolonized programme,’ ‘decolonized syllabus,’ or a ‘decolonized university.’ It allows you to be honest – about who you/we are and how you/we are situated within certain privileges.
Then I further learned about decolonizing work through Cherokee scholar and activist Rebecca Nagle who was part of the group who created the Elizabeth Warren syllabus with two other citizens of the Cherokee Nation, Adrienne Keene and Joseph M. Pierce which “was meant to not only address Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s claims to Cherokee ancestry but to contextualize the history of such claims by non-natives to Native ancestry.”
Links to their scholarly works in the comments below.
