Decolonial epistemologies and pedagogies
Decolonial Epistemologies and Pedagogies are practices in theory-building, method and pedagogy that challenge and go beyond current approaches in the humanities and social sciences.
They move away from dominant frameworks and prioritise research methodologies and pedagogies that originate from outside established circuits of knowledge production, geography and capital.
By doing so, they seek to engage more with Indigenous, black, race-critical, ‘border’ theorists, artists and practitioners to rework the ways we use, share and (co)-create knowledge, conduct research and teach across disciplines.
We have a diverse group of researchers working across these and related areas.
- Dr Luis F. Angosto Ferrández engages with local initiatives to recast property regimes in the face of ongoing threats of territorial and cultural dispossession.
- Dr Beatriz Carbajal focuses on colonial indicators in Spanish multimodal humour.
- Dr Vek Lewis continues his work on migrant health through his project on Diabetes management, masculinity and agency among Latin American migrants.
- Dr Fernanda Peñaloza decentres our understandings of film festivals by deploying new perspectives on ‘world cinema’ within a South-South circulation axis.
- Dr Lucia Sorbera’s work on feminist activism in the Arab world brings new perspectives on the intersections between human rights and feminist activism, situating women’s perspectives and experiences at the centre of knowledge production.
Our projects
Led by Dr Beatriz Carbajal Carrera. This project responds to a call for linguistics to go beyond an exclusive focus on communicational norms to a wider sociocultural perspective that recognises colonial indicators in discourse, especially regarding Spanish multimodal humour.
Led by Dr Luis F. Angosto Ferrández. In this stream of research, Dr Luis F. Angosto Ferrández examines how the inhabitants of peripheral regions within semi-peripheral countries such as Venezuela and Chile manoeuvre to recast property regimes (over “land” and “culture”) in face of ongoing threats of dispossession with roots in neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism.
Led by Dr Luis F. Angosto Ferrández. This stream of research examines contemporary expressions and re-creations of criollo/mestizo ideologies as anti-racist and egalitarian utopias.
Led by Dr Vek Lewis. This research, which arises from a previously funded pilot, undertakes a life-course/self-concept approach around diabetes management, gender and the relational selves constructed in Latin American male migrants' accounts, how they work from certain knowledge/praxis (implying bids for agency), and constructs of the world.
Led by Dr Fernanda Penaloza. Southern Cinemascapes challenges the traditional perspective that positions Europe as the cradle of film festivals; it develops new perspectives on ‘world cinema’ due to very specific geographical orientations, locations and geopolitical tensions within a South-South circulation axis.
Led by Dr Lucia Sorbera. This book project (University of California Press) maps the tight web of personal and professional relationships developed among multiple generations of Egyptian women who witnessed, actively took part in, and documented a century of Egyptian and Middle Eastern political history.
It is the first study to shed light on the intersection between Human Rights and feminist activism from the 1980s until today, situating women’s perspectives and experiences at the centre of knowledge production.
Led by Dr Lucia Sorbera. This research project contributes to the intellectual history of European frontiers and to the literature on women’s history from a decolonial feminist perspective.
Historical analysis of female Arab and African political activists crossing geographical and epistemic borders in the post-colonial age works toward better understanding the long-terms trajectories that link international politics and the construction of gender subjectivities.
(Sorbera collaborative project with Mark LeVine (UC Irvine), Jakelin Troy, Janelle Evans, Rosanne Quinnell, Rebecca Cross, Mitchell Gibbs, Katie Moore, Mujahid Torwali, Kashef Khan, and Melanie Pitkin)
This project is situated across Australia, Africa and South Asia, and draws on the established research strengths of the project team to document the impacts of ecological degradation on our coastlines caused by ever worsening climate, food and health crises.
It documents and brings together the tradition of oral history with digital storytelling and artistic/cultural activities, producing an innovative multimedia archive on migration, and applying principles of Indigenous social sciences research methodologies by privileging the voices and goals of local Indigenous populations.
Led by Dr Macarena Jimenez, this stream of research aims to incorporate critical pedagogy and decolonial critique into language(s) education in order to question Eurocentric norms and language ideologies that have been naturalised as common-sense arguments by coloniality. It also seeks to critically reflect on the intersectional nature of structural inequality and, ultimately, delink ourselves from Western knowledge as the only possible way of thinking and being.
Our people
- Dr Luis F. Angosto-Ferrández, Spanish and Latin American Studies and Anthropology
- Dr Beatriz Carbajal, Spanish and Latin American Studies
- Dr Vek Lewis, Spanish and Latin American Studies
- Dr Fernanda Peñaloza, Spanish and Latin American Studies
- Dr Lucia Sorbera, Arabic Studies