Listen to episode one of the podcast here.
For decades, scholars around the world have questioned the Eurocentric epistemic structures that shape academia, stressing the need to “decolonise” it. However, it soon became apparent that there were significantly different understandings of what “decolonising” means, how this was to be achieved or if it was at all possible. In the last few years these debates have intensified as they have taken been up within a wider conversation around equity, diversity, and inclusion, which have also been fraught with their own epistemological/terminological/ and implementation difficulties. At LSE’s Department of Media and Communications, we engaged in a self-reflective exercise to understand what “decolonising” means to us, how our research and pedagogical practices engage with this concept and what could we do to further strengthen our commitment to ethical research and education.
Thanks to a fellowship award by the Eden Centre, we were able to embark on a research project titled “Epistemic reflexivity as a tool to “decolonise” teaching and learning practices”. Focusing on the pedagogic practices in our own department, we first examined how knowledge is presented in the lectures of two core courses offered at MSc level. We learned that even if our curriculum is still overwhelmingly Western-centric — which is arguably expected given LSE’s geographical location and cultural context — the efforts of many lecturers to expand the spectrum of knowledge by making it more inclusive through alternative ways of knowing are gradually becoming more visible.
Critically reflecting on the findings of this research project and wishing to contribute to improving the quality of our teaching practices, we produced a podcast series where we discuss the complexities of “decolonising” the classroom. We reframe this conversation by focusing on “epistemic reflexivity” and propose following four steps to make our teaching practices more inclusive: (1) Reflect on knowledge production; (2) Acknowledge your positionality; (3) Situate and de-centre; and (4) Reach out, engage, and incorporate. What do these steps mean and how will they help our classrooms become a more enriching experience? Before you go on and click on the link, we invite you to first consider the following questions:
1) Start by asking yourself: how do you know the things you know? Who decided this is knowledge? Whose authority is it to decide this? Why do we take it for granted?
2) After this, consider where you stand. How do your life experiences shape the way you understand the world? Do you keep this valuable information to yourself, or do you share it when you have conversations with others?
3) Having identified where you stand, put it aside for a minute and consider other ways of knowing. What other ways of knowledge creation do you know of? What do they look like? How are they organised? Can you imagine other value systems? What do they cherish? In what different way do they help us understand the world?
4) Finally, who are your interlocutors? Can you reach others? What are the limitations of doing this? How can we reach out to knowledge creators from other parts of the world? What can we do to build bridges? Can you incorporate other voices in your own work?
We hope that you enjoy listening to our podcast and don’t forget to leave your comments!