Decolonising Ideas

In this episode, Dr Simon Buck discusses his research on the University of Edinburgh's historical links to African Enslavement and how this relates to wider projects and practices of Decoloniality in Universities such as Edinburgh. 

You can find out more about the Institute Project on Decoloniality at: ⁠https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/ipd⁠

We would like to thank everyone involved in making this episode possible:

Speaker - Dr Simon Buck, Research Fellow (University of Edinburgh’s Historical Links to African Enslavement and Colonialism) at IASH

Speaker, Recording, and Editing - Ash Scholz, Decoloniality Intern at IASH

Series Production - Ben Fletcher-Watson, Deputy Director at IASH

Theme music composed and performed by Saber Bamatraf. Please visit ⁠https://soundcloud.com/saber-bamatraf⁠ to hear more of his music.

At the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, we host around 60 researchers each year from all around the world and at all career stages, from recent PhD graduates to senior academics. People often ask about our application process and what our reviewers are looking for in an application, so we're sharing some of the key aspects that our selection panels have highlighted over the years. This is especially aimed at postdoctoral researchers who are planning to apply to IASH, but is hopefully of interest to all.

We would like to thank everyone involved in making this episode possible:

Writer and presenter -  Ben Fletcher-Watson

Recording and Editing - Lauren Galligan

Branding - Lucien Staddon Foster

Series Production - Ben Fletcher-Watson

Theme music composed and performed by Saber Bamatraf. Please visit https://soundcloud.com/saber-bamatraf to hear more of his music.

Please visit our website at www.iash.ed.ac.uk to find out more about all our Fellowship programmes.

In this bonus episode, which complements our first episode, "Decoloniality and the Arab Majority World", Dr Ali Kassem and Dr Nadeen Dakkak discuss their definitions of decoloniality and provide recommendations of readings and art forms relating to decoloniality. 

Find out more about the Institute Project on Decoloniality: https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/ipd

Recommendations: 

Nadeen

Omar AlShehabi (2019). Contested Modernity: Sectarianism, Nationalism and Colonialism in Bahrain. Oneworld Publications, London.

Amal Ghazal (2010). Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism: Expanding the Crescent from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, 1880s-1930s. Routledge, London.

Amitav Ghosh (1992). In an Antique Land. Granta Books, London.

Ahmed Kanna, Amelie Le Renard and Neha Vora (2020). Beyond Exception: New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

Amelie Le Renard (2021). Western Privilege: Work, Intimacy, and Postcolonial Hierarchies in Dubai. Stanford University Press, Redwood City.

Ussama Makdisi (2019). Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Timothy Mitchell (2011). Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. Verso Books, New York.

Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur (Feat. Shadia Mansour)

Ali

Anaheed Al-Hardan (2014). Decolonizing Research on Palestinians: Towards Critical Epistemologies and Research Practices. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(1), 61-71.

Gurminder Bhambra (2014). Postcolonial and decolonial dialogues. Postcolonial Studies, 17(2), 115-121.

Gurminder Bhambra & John Holmwood (2021). Colonialism and Modern Social Theory. Wiley, New Jersey.

Frantz Fanon (1963). The Wretched of the Earth. Penguin Modern Classics, London.

Frantz Fanon (1967). Black Skin, White Masks. Penguin Modern Classics, London.

Ramon Grosfoguel (2013). The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities: Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 11(1), 73-90.

Ali Kassem (2020). Anti-Muslim hate on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean: Lebanon, the Hijab, and modernity/coloniality. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(12), 2213-2233.

Walter Mignolo (2011). The Darker Side of Western Modernity. Duke University Press, Durham.

Sara Salem (2018). Reading Egypt's Postcolonial State Through Frantz Fanon: Hegemony, Dependency and Development. Interventions, 20(3), 428-445.

Dave - Black

Kery James - Lettre à la République

Kery James - Sans Mio 

Lowkey - Terrorist 

Credits: 

Speakers - Dr. Ali Kassem and Dr Nadeen Dakkak

Series Production - Ben Fletcher Watson

Branding and Production - Lucien Staddon Foster 

Recording and Editing - Eric Berger

Theme Music - Saber Bamatraf

In this episode, Dr Ali Kassem and Dr Nadeen Dakkak discuss how their scholarship relates to practices and theories of decoloniality and broader issues of coloniality in the Arabic-speaking majority world. 

You can find out more about the Institute Project on Decoloniality at: https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/ipd

Timestamps

2:17: Ali and Nadeen’s conversation begins, discussing the terminology each use to describe the region they work on, and why it’s important.

10:46: The two discuss: What does it mean to be Arab? Has what it means to be Arab changed over time?

26:10: Ali and Nadeen discuss languages and coloniality, and the internalized inferiority it can produce.  Why aren’t there more published works about the region in Arabic?  Why is publishing research in Arabic difficult? And why is this important? They also touch on differences in the education systems of Lebanon and Kuwait.

40:12: Ali introduces the differences he’s noticed about decolonising in English vs decolonising in Arabic, and the two discuss. How do we actually decolonise? What role does language play? They also share frustrations they have in common.

Transcript

We would like to thank everyone involved in making this episode possible:

Speaker - Dr Nadeen Dakkak, Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellow at IASH

Speaker - Dr Ali Kassem, Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellow at IASH

Series Production - Ben Fletcher-Watson, Administrative Manager at IASH

Branding and Production - Lucien Staddon Foster, Communications and Events at IASH

Recording and Editing - Eric Berger, Podcast Technician at IASH

Theme music composed and performed by Saber Bamatraf. Please visit https://soundcloud.com/saber-bamatraf to hear more of his music.