Anti-Colonialism and Education Essay

In Anti-Colonialism and statement The Politics of Resi lieu, George J. Sefa Dei and Arlo Kempf have given us a stimulating intellectual account of the issues surrounding the active attempt for commandal liberation. The authors who have contributed to the volume have been well chosen to present fanciful approaches to this abiding chore in most of the field. As we engage the legacies of compoundism we atomic number 18 more certain today that the nonmaterial legacies ar as consequential in our thinking as the material 1s when we engage questions of tube and recovery. The coloniser did non only seize land, but likewise souls.If compoundisms in? uence had been merely the control of land that would have required only oneness form of enemy, but when avouchation is also colonise, it is essential that the resistance moldiness interrogate issues related to education, information and intellectual displacements. Colonialism seeks to impose the provide of one batch on anot her and to use the resources of the impose people for the bene? t of the imposer. Nothing is sacred in such a system as it major powers its elan toward the extinction of the volitions of the imposed upon with one objective in mind the ultimatesubjection of the will to resist. An effective system of compoundism reduces the imposed upon to a shell of a human who is incapable of thinking in a subjective way of his or her feature interest. In everything the person becomes ilk the imposer thus in lusts, wishes, plentys, purposes, styles, structures, values, and especi all told(a)y the values of education, the person operates against his or her have got interest. Colonialism does not engender creativity it sti? es it, suppresses it under the cloak of supporter when in fact it is creating conditions that mention it impossible for humans to effectively resist.And soon enough there has always been resistance and there argon refreshed methods of resistance gaining ground each d ay. The intricacies of engaging compoundism are as numerous as the ways colonialism has impacted upon the world. Indeed, the political-economic, affablebehavioral, and cultural-aesthetic legacies of the colonizing process have left human beings with a variety of ways to confront the impact of those legacies. What we see in Anti-Colonialism and Education is a profound attempt to beat for the reader the possibilities inherent in educational transformation by means of the political sympathies of resistance.Professors Dei and Kempf have purposed a impertinent imagilanded estate in selecting the authors for the chapters in this defend. Each author is an expert in the area of the topic, skilled in presentation of the facts based upon current theories, and phrase in the expression of a need for educators to substantiate the pressures ix warm-up both for and against colonialism. However, they all take the position that it is necessary to explore all formulations that might achieve a liberated sphere of education. Since education normally follows the plethoric political lines in a country where you have colonial political principles you will ?nd colonial education. If you have the vestiges of other(prenominal) colonial practices, you will see those practices re? ected in the educational system. I take to be a colleague from Algeria saying to me that when the French ruled the country the students wise to(p) that their ancestors were the Gauls. When independence came to Algeria, he said, the people were taught that their ancestors were Arabs. The fact that this was only true for those individuals who had Arab origins, and 30 percent did not have such ancestry, was uninteresting to the political agenda.And so it has been in every nation where you have a political objective to mold a country on the basis of domination you will also have resistance. One seems to go with the other regardless to how enormous the process seems to take to commence. This is not ju st an exciting contribute intellectually it is a beautiful book edited with intelligence and executed with the soma of research and scholarship that will bring us back to its pages many times. Each author seems to feel the same desire to teach us to be truly human that is enough for us to inaugurate our own anti-colonialism campaign in our schools and colleges.I shall gladly join the fray to make the world better. Mole? Kete Asante Elkins Park, PA 19027 USA x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book could not have been completed without the political interest and will of the many people who shared their fellowship in this joint undertaking. While the task of re-visioning instruction and education for the contemporary learner and teacher may be daunting at times, we believe strongly that it is by no means insurmountable. In fact, we have a wealth of knowledge with which to help transform education into a process and practice that serves the needs of the incarnate.We hope this book will contr ibute to the debate and discussion of how to address not only the imperialization of knowledge but also the various forms of intellectual colonization that mask themselves as everyday pedantic truth and valid knowledge. George Dei would comparable to thank the students of his potash alum level course, SES 3914S Anti-Colonial Thought and Pedagogical Challenges in the fall of 2004 whose insights and discussions helped propel the vision for this collection. Arlo Kempf would like to thank Lola Douglas, Meghan Mckee and Randy Kempf for their support and loveliness.He would also like to thank George Dei and the contributors for their ideas and hard work over the duration of this project. We both owe a great deal of intellectual depth to our colleagues, peers and friends who constantly altercate us to think more deeply and avoid academic closure. It is in the actions and resistance of the people that possibility is born and takes life to all who undertake by against colonialism witho ut the privilege of a pen in hand, we thank and salute you. Our academic objective for the book was also shaped by a desire to let our community politics inform intellectual pursuits at all times.We want to thank Geoff Rytell, who initially helped proofread sections of the book, as well as Cheryl Williams for her ongoing support. Finally we say thank you to Joe Kincheloe, Shirley Steinberg and Peter de Liefde who made this book a reality. George Dei Arlo Kempf xi GEORGE J. SEFA DEI INTRODUCTION MAPPING THE TERRAIN TOWARDS A NEW governing OF RESISTANCE INTRODUCTION I begin this chapter with a question relevant as to why and how we articulate anticolonial aspect. Informed by St crimson Bikos (1978) before work, I ask Why is it necessary for us as settled peoples to think and re?ect collectively about a problem not of our creation i. e. , the problem of colonialism? This question is central since colonialism has not finish and we see around us today various examples of colonial and neo-colonial traffic produced within our schools, colleges, universities, homes, families, workplaces and other institutional settings. It is often said that globalization is the unused word for imperialism. History and context are crucial for anti-colonial undertakings. Understanding our collective past is signi? backt for pursuing political resistance. Haunani-Kay Trask (1991) writes about the vastness of the past to Indigenous peoples as a way to challenge the dominants call to amputate the past and its histories. For the people of Hawaiia, Trask notes that we do not need, nor do we want to be liberated from our past because it is source of our understanding . . . We . . . stand ? rmly in the present, with our back to the future, and our eyes ? xed upon the past, seeking historical answers for present-day dilemmas (p. 164).In put together to understand the knowledge and resistance of the past as it relates to contemporary politics of resistance, one has to know and lear n about this past. As noted elsewhere (Dei, 2000, p. 11), for colonized peoples decolonization involves a reclamation of the past, previously excluded in the biography of the colonial and colonized nations. They must identify the colonial historical boundary from the perspectives of their places and their peoples. Knowledge of the past is also relevant in so farther as we as people must use that knowledge responsibly.But our situatedness as knowledge producers and how we perform the gaze on subjects, at times accord power and privilege to some bodies and not others. Therefore, an anti-colonial fight down must identify and de? ne a political project and express its connections to the academic engagement. Franz Fanon and Karl Marx have both cautioned us that what matters is not to know the world but to change it. This assertion calls for a recognition of the multiple points/places of certificate of indebtedness and right.For example, what does it mean to talk of accountability as far as identity element and subjectivity, however complex? It may well mean taking the stance that in political work for change, certain issues are not negotiable. In other words, we need to see there are limits and possibilities of negotiating in anti-colonial struggles and politics. As Howard (2004) asks How much can be G. J. S. Dei and A. Kempf (eds. ), Anti-Colonialism and Education The Politics of Resistance, 123. 2006. find Publishers. All rights reserved. DEI accomplished if we decide to negotiate around domination or oppression?Are we negotiating as part of a democratic exercise? Rabaka (2003) has argued that one of the most important tasks of a searing anti-colonial theory . . . is to capture and critique the continuities and discontinuities of the colonial and neocolonial in grade to make sense of our soon . . . colonized life and . . . worlds (p. 7). Therefore as we begin to ? esh out anti-colonial theory and practice, it is ? tting to ask some critical questions (see also Butler, 2002) Is there still a colonized South? What about a colonized North?Do we think of neo-colonialism/colonialism/post-colonialism as bridges, as new articulations, or as a continuation with no marked divergentiation? What is post about/in the post-colonial? Is the theoretical distinction between neo-colonialism and colonialism spurious at best? What are the purposes and underlying intentions of making such distinctions? What are the convergences and the divergences in post-colonial and anti-colonial thoughts? Does neo in neo-colonial mean new, or transformed? What is neo-colonialism? What are its antecedents and its marked practices?What are the mechanisms and institutions that constitute neo-colonialism? Why do we let out of neo-colonialism and not anti-colonialism? Are the structures, practices and ideas which modify colonialism really that divers(prenominal) from those of neo-colonialism? Are the differences between neo-colonialism and colonialism more than theoretical? Whose interests are advanced in oral presentation of neo-colonialism/post-colonialism? What are the disjunctures and discontinuities between colonialism and neo-colonialism? How do digressive forces and material aspects interact to further our understanding of colonial?How do we speak of power, coercion, subjectivity, agency and resistance in anti-colonial discursive practice? What are the transaction between neo-colonialism and White supremacy? The book does not presume to strait full answers to all these questions. But it is hoped the discussions that follow offer some unveiling points into a new politics of engagement towards the formulation of a critical anti-colonial lens. The power of the anti-colonial prism lies in its offering of new philosophical insights to challenge Europocentric preachings, in order to pave the way for Southern/ indigenous intellectual and political emancipation.In this discussion, anti-colonial is de? ned as an approach to theorizing colonial and re-colonial dealing and the implications of imperial structures on the processes of knowledge production and validation, the understanding of indigeneity, and the pursuit of agency, resistance and subjective politics (see also Dei and Asgharzadeh, 2001). Colonialism, read as imposition and domination, did not end with the return of political sovereignty to colonized peoples or nation states. Colonialism is not dead.Indeed, colonialism and re-colonizing projects today manifest themselves in variegated ways (e. g. the different ways knowledges get produced and receive validation within schools, the specific experiences of students that get counted as invalid and the identities that receive recognition and response from school authorities. The anti-colonial prism theorizes the record and extent of social domination and grouchyly the multiple places that power, and the dealing of power, work to establish dominant-subordinate connections. This prism also scrutinizes 2I NTRODUCTION and deconstructs dominant give-and-takes and epistemologies, piece of music raising questions of and about its own practice. It highlights and analyzes contexts, and explores alternatives to colonial relations. Loomba (1998) sees colonialism as signifying territorial self-will of a place/space by an imperial power, eyepatch imperialism on the other hand is the governing ideology for such occupation. Anti-colonial thought whole shebang with these two themes/projects colonialism and imperialism as never ending. The colonial in anti-colonial however, invokes much more.It refers to anything imposed and dominating rather than that which is simply foreign and alien. Colonialism reinforces exclusive notions of belonging, difference and high quality (Principe, 2004). It pursues a politics of domination which informs and constructs dominant images of both the colonizer and the colonized (Memmi, 1969). Colonialism is not simply complicit in how we come to know ourselves and its politics. It also establishes sustainable hierarchies and systems of power. Colonial images continually uphold the colonizers sense of reason, authority and control.It scripts and violates the colonized as the violent other, while, in contrast, the colonizer is pitted as an innocent, clement and imperial saviour (see also Principe, 2004). This historical relationship of the colonizer and colonized continues to inform contemporary subject identity formation and knowledge production. It shapes and informs identities by recreating colonial ideologies and mythologies (Tuhiwai-Smith, 1999). In theorizing the anti-colonial discursive framework, I would highlight some key striking points. All knowledge can be located in the particular social contexts from which it emerges.Such location shapes the ways of knowing and understanding the social and political relations at play in constructing social realities. The anti-colonial prism takes the position that all knowledges are socially si tuated and politically contested. The anti-colonial discourse is situated in colonial relations of power that are contested through resistant practices against domination and oppression. In working with resistant knowledges, the liberating in? uence of critical anti-colonial discourse becomes clear. The anti-colonial discourse works with the idea of the epistemological power of the colonized subjects.The colonial knowing is situated and apprised within particular social contexts (see also Harding, 1996). Such situated knowledges (hooks, 1991 Collins, 1990) also point to the importance of subjectivity, positionality, location and history. In this regard, the anti-colonial referent is to the epistemologies about, and of, marginalized, colonized subjects. Particular and different interests are served by knowledge systems, and the anti-colonial aim is to subvert dominant thinking that re-inscribes colonial and colonizing relations.The ability and strength of the anti-colonial prism to draw upon different discursive traditions to apologize social and political phenomena is an important strength for multiple knowings. But anti-colonial thought, while borrowing from other theoretical frameworks, is not constrained by dominant epistemologies. It calls for a critical awareness of the social relations and power issues insert in the ways of organizing the production, interrogation, validation and dissemination of knowledge in order to challenge social oppression and 3 DEI consequently subvert domination. It also calls for acknowledging accountability and power.Since the burden of oppression is not shared equally among groups, and that even among the oppressed we are not all affected the same way (see also Larbalestier, 1990), we must all be able to address questions of accountability and responsibility of knowledge. It is within such a context that one must evaluate the politics of anti-colonial thought, in its call for a radical transformation of the analytical and conceptual frames of reference, used both in the academy and in mainstream public discourse so that the minoritized, subjugated voice, experience and history can be powerfully evoked, acknowledged and responded to.Unless we are able to articulate the pace on which we share a dialogue and challenge the power relations of knowledge production, we will be shirking the responsibility of acting on our knowledge. The academic project of anti-colonial thinking and practice is to challenge and resist Eurocentric theorizing of the colonial encounter. Such Eurocentric theorizing is best captured in representations of minoritized/colonized bodies and their knowledges, and through the power of colonial imageries.The anticolonial critique also deals with interrogations of colonial representations and imaginaries examining processes and representations of legitimacy and decadence through the mutually constitutive relations of power. Colonialisms were/are practised differently they differ in th eir representations and consequently have myriad in? uences, impacts and implications for different communities. Colonial practices can be refracted around race, gender, class, age, disability, culture and nation as sites of difference. In many ways the anti-colonial thought is the emergence of a new political, cultural and intellectual movement re?ecting the values and aspirations of colonized and resisting peoples/subjects. The occidental academy cannot continue to deny the intellectual agency of colonized peoples. As resisting subjects, we will all have to confront and deal with the historic inferiorization of colonial subjects, and the devaluation of rich histories and cultures. What is required is critical educational praxis that is anchored in anti-colonial thought to challenge and subvert the Western cultural and capital overkill, and shed the sniffy idea that others know and understand us as colonized subjects better than we understand ourselves (see also Prah, 1997, pp.19 23). Colonized peoples require an anti-colonial prism that is useful in helping to disabuse our minds of the lies and falsehoods told about our peoples, our pasts and our histories (see also Rodney, 1982). We need to present anti-colonial discourse as a way to challenge Eurocentric culture as the tacit norm everyone references and on which so many of us axial rotation our gaze (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1998, p. 11).This approach to anti-colonial discursive thought and practice is also informed by the academic and political project calling for knowledge that settled groups can use to ? nd authentic and viable solutions to our own problems. In this struggle we can point to some positive developments. For example everyplace today, we (as colonized peoples) are reclaiming and reinvigorating our marginalised, and in some cases, lost voices and are speaking for ourselves. Within educational academies in North America and in the South, there 4