WHAT TOPICS CAN I PRESENT ON?

This conference welcomes presentations that discuss:

• What are the specific ways in which intellectual imperialism, academic dependency, white supremacy, and global academic power structures impact subalternized academics and knowledge production, and how does this manifest in the knowledge that is being produced?

• What are the strategies that we can use to resist and dismantle problematic structures? How can we ensure that the subaltern can speak and is heard

• What specifically would be the characteristics of true epistemic justice and true autonomous knowledge production?

Overall, the conference welcomes submissions on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Intellectual imperialism and academic dependency
• Power structures in knowledge production
• Political economy of academic production
• Coloniality of knowledge and eurocentric and white supremacist biases in knowledge
• How knowledge production is racialized and colonized
• Epistemic extractivism and appropriation of knowledge
• Epistemic sexism and epistemic racism
• Knowledge born out of struggles
• Knowledge production and education in social movements
• Language, coloniality, and knowledge production
• Production, dissemination, and intergenerational transfer of Indigenous knowledges
• The potentials and pitfalls of knowledge co-production between the academe and
  the grassroots
• Autonomous academic communication and communities
• Autonomous knowledge production
• Strategies for de-metrification and dismantling rankings

THE CONFERENCE

This conference warmly invites thinkers and activists to contribute work that advances our understanding of intellectual imperialism, academic dependency, epistemic violence, and that suggests interventions paving the way to epistemic justice and autonomous knowledge production.

Scholars researching intellectual imperialism and academic dependency have critiqued the structural inequalities of global academia and knowledge production (S. F. Alatas 2003; S. H. Alatas 2000; Guillermo 2023; Patel 2021). They argue that the metrification of academia and the imposition of university and journal rankings orient all knowledge production towards the Global North, predominantly the US, where most highly ranked universities, journals, and conferences are based (Guillermo 2023). In the race for university rankings and faculty productivity metrics, scholars from the Global North, especially White scholars, hold hegemonic influence in shaping research directions, evaluating scholarly works, setting “best practices” and training the next generations of academics. I.e., scholars who hold globally disproportionate amounts of privilege, and who are benefiting from rather than being violated by global power structures and the (after)effects of imperialism, (settler)colonialism and slavery, are judging and gatekeeping the knowledge production of the Global Majority, often with vastly insufficient knowledge about Global Southern contexts and concerns. Thus, the elites of the Global North assessing and evaluating what globally counts as “good scholarship” and what not, what is globally relevant and what not, what deserves to be published or presented and what not. These global academic power relations have an uncanny resemblance to colonial power relations. Critics have for a very long time pointed out Eurocentric, white-centric and ideological biases pervading the social sciences and humanities (Rizal 1890; Du Bois 1947 [in Itzigsohn and Brown 2020]; Quijano 2000; Mignolo 2002, Alatas 2003, Grosfoguel 2013). This testifies to the problematic effects of these gatekeeping functions of Global North-based scholars and institutions. This epistemic violence is a formidable, tragic injustice of our time. It is extremely insidious that a group of elite scholars distorts global knowledge production and at the same time excludes the Global Majority from it, and we urgently call on scholars from all continents to put a stop to it.

These academic power relations render knowledge production itself racialized and colonized. Our very notions of “knowledge production” in academia are elitist in the sense that only knowledge production by academics—who often are white, upper class, and hold other privileges—is seen as valid. Laypeople, workers, farmers, the subaltern, racialized and indigenous people are producing, holding and transmitting accurate and valuable knowledges, but these knowledges are not seen as legitimate, they are instead perceived as mere “raw” data for academics to freely use, interpret, theorize upon and publish in single-authored publications (Tillman 2024). The methods used to “process” this data often carry racist and white supremacist biases (Zuberi 2000, 2001; Zuberi and Bonilla-Silva 2008), leading to biased theories.

Even scholars from the Global North writing about decolonization and the struggles of communities situated in the Global South may commit epistemic violence. One problem that scholars with privilege writing about subaltern subjects face is the danger of extracting and appropriating subaltern knowledge. Epistemic extractivism occurs when knowledge produced by communities in struggle from the Global South are appropriated, depoliticized and decontextualized without receiving any benefits from the scholar writing about them (Rivera Cusicanqui 2012, Grosfoguel 2016). Well-intended scholars can still reproduce epistemic sexist and racist practices by not acknowledging the origins of theories of liberation by women and communities from the Global South (Grosfoguel 2013 and 2018). There has been a rich tradition of women from the Global South interrogating white feminist scholarship for excluding or appropriating the experiences of women from the Global South (Mohanty 1988, Curiel 2017, Espinosa Miñoso 2018 and 2022). Activists and scholars from the Global South have called to interrogate the political economy of intellectual production in the Global North as well as the networks of dependencies in the exchanges and collaborations between scholars from both regions. Furthermore, there is a demand to center the voices of the scholars and activists immersed in social struggles in the Global South without appropriating or depoliticizing their practices and knowledge.

In light of these issues, scholars have called for the need to dismantle the power structures and hierarchies of global academia (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2021; Schöpf 2021) and to foster Autonomous Academic Communication Communities (Guillermo 2023) in the Global South and among discriminated groups in the Global North that will engage in truly autonomous knowledge production. Such communities may facilitate truly autonomous knowledge production, enabling them to theorize based on their own historical, social, and cultural contexts, and to conduct agenda setting and problem formulation informed by local, in-group concerns, without influences and pressures coming from global academic elites distorting their research (S. H. Alatas 1979, 2002).

View References (PDF).

SUBMISSIONS

• Prepare the following before you submit:

• • Title of your presentation
  • A 150-300 word abstract
  • Brief profile that includes only your position, institutional affiliation, research interests, and a publication or two that you wish to highlight.

• Send all this information via this Submission Form (Google Form) on or before 20 October 2024.
  

INVITED SPEAKERS

VENUE: ZOOM

For those interested to attend the panels via Zoom, a registration form will be posted here in due course.

Please follow our Facebook page or join our mailing list to get updates re: access to the Zoom credentials.

Presenters will be contacted re: Zoom arrangements in due course as well. Please visit this page for updates.

ORGANIZERS

This conference is a project of the Decolonial Studies Program (DSP), Center for Integrative and Development Studies, University of the Philippines. UP CIDS is the policy research unit of the university. 

Taking lead on this project is Dr. Caroline Schopf, Research Fellow of the DSP.  See co-organizers below.

The Decolonial Studies Program (DSP) was established in 2019 to interrogate coloniality and the ongoing effects of colonialism in the Global South.

The program examines how neocolonial relationships with the Global North continue to shape institutions and lives in areas like resource allocation, trade, and culture, hindering the Global South’s potential for liberation. Visit the DSP’s website and download FREE publications.

The DSP is one of the 16 Research Programs of UP CIDS, the policy research unit of the University of the Philippines. Visit the CIDS database and download 1000+ publications!

• Rosa O’Connor-Acevedo (University of Oregon, US)
• Francisco Jayme Guiang (University of the Philippines Diliman / Chinese University of Hong Kong)
• Bijulal Mecheril (Mahatma Gandhi University, India)
• Monfred Sy (University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines)
• Fatima Sajjad (University of Management and Technology, Pakistan)
• Cian Tacasa (University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines)
• Korey Tillman (Northwestern University, US)

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Download these free policy papers from the Decolonial Studies Program.

• Exploring Methods to Decolonize English Studies | Discussion Paper (2023)
• Decolonial Approaches to Legislation in the Bangsamoro Context | Policy Brief (2023)
• Bangsamoro Local Government Code: Re-reading of Decentralization and its Problems | Policy Brief (2023)
• Decolonial Approaches to Legislation: Seminar-Workshop | Proceedings (2023)
• Decolonizing Religion: Wishful Thinking or a Real Possibility? | Discussion Paper (2023)

OTHER POLICY PAPERS

Download most recent policy papers from the UP CIDS Strategic Studies Program:

• Philippine Identities and Digital Humanities in the Age of Machines, Social Media and Artificial Intelligence | Discussion Paper (2024)