Positionality and the ‘Decolonization’ of Knowledge: Insights from ‘Postcolonial’ Thought

Paper Abstract: A key argument in the increasingly prominent decolonial school of thought is that knowledge needs to be ‘decolonized’. Decolonial scholars argue that coloniality persists even in our supposedly decolonized era and that knowledge production plays a central role in maintaining coloniality. Furthermore, much decolonial thinking suggests that scholars’ identity and positionality greatly influence the knowledge they produce. This paper intervenes in debates on decolonizing knowledge by bringing some of the ideas of key scholars in the ‘postcolonial’ tradition to bear on these contemporary debates. In particular, I draw on the thinking of VY Mudimbe, Gayatri Spivak and Edward Said. In so doing, I bring scholars writing on this topic from Africa, Asia and the Middle East into conversation with each other and with the decolonial school, which is dominated by Latin American scholars. Drawing on Mudimbe, Spivak and Said, I argue in favour of a complex and nuanced approach to the idea of ‘decolonizing’ knowledge and the specific question of how our identities and positionalities affect knowledge production.