Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher education

TLDR

The paper reviews literature highlighting the pedagogical challenges of engaging with critiques of modernity. The study aims to map and analyze responses to modernity’s violence and apply this cartography to understand interpretations and practices of decolonization in higher education. The authors construct a pedagogical social cartography mapping tensions, paradoxes, and contradictions in responses to modernity’s violence. The resulting cartography illustrates varied responses to modernity’s violence and highlights challenges in redefining relationships with a violent, crisis‑ridden educational system.

Abstract

This article presents a social cartography of responses to the violences of modernity and uses this cartography to analyse different meanings and practices of decolonization in the context of higher education. As a pedagogical rather than normative exercise, we have tried to map tensions, paradoxes and contradictions we have observed in different responses to the violences of modernity. We start with a brief synthesis of selected literature that outlines the challenges of engaging pedagogically with critiques of modernity. We then present our tentative cartography of responses to modernity’s violence. Next, we apply the cartography to the literature on higher education focusing on interpretations and practices of decolonization. We conclude with some reflections on the challenges of developing a different relationship to modernity’s grammar in the task of being taught by a violent system in crisis.