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Ep30: Postcolonialism with Somdeep Sen
“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well.” — Frantz Fanon
What does liberation mean when the very language of freedom is shaped by empire?
In this episode, we speak with Somdeep Sen, political scientist and author of Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial, about what it means to struggle for freedom in a postcolonial world. Drawing from personal experience and deep theoretical work, Sen challenges the universalist narratives of human rights, democracy, and justice that often underpin activist discourse.
We ask hard questions:
Postcolonial theory complicates easy binaries of oppressor and oppressed. It insists that resistance must also question its own assumptions, ideologies, and categories. It urges us to find what Homi Bhabha calls the “third space” — an ambiguous, non-deterministic zone where new forms of struggle, identity, and solidarity can emerge.
Sen challenges us to move beyond performative politics and imagine a liberation that is not defined by the coloniser’s table, but by shared values, radical imagination, and transnational solidarity.
Resources & Show Links:
Host: Phil Wilmot
Guest: Somdeep Sen
Producer & Audio Production: Rodgers George
Intro/Outro Jingles: Mwaduga Salum & Beautiful Trouble
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By Beautiful Trouble“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well.” — Frantz Fanon
What does liberation mean when the very language of freedom is shaped by empire?
In this episode, we speak with Somdeep Sen, political scientist and author of Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial, about what it means to struggle for freedom in a postcolonial world. Drawing from personal experience and deep theoretical work, Sen challenges the universalist narratives of human rights, democracy, and justice that often underpin activist discourse.
We ask hard questions:
Postcolonial theory complicates easy binaries of oppressor and oppressed. It insists that resistance must also question its own assumptions, ideologies, and categories. It urges us to find what Homi Bhabha calls the “third space” — an ambiguous, non-deterministic zone where new forms of struggle, identity, and solidarity can emerge.
Sen challenges us to move beyond performative politics and imagine a liberation that is not defined by the coloniser’s table, but by shared values, radical imagination, and transnational solidarity.
Resources & Show Links:
Host: Phil Wilmot
Guest: Somdeep Sen
Producer & Audio Production: Rodgers George
Intro/Outro Jingles: Mwaduga Salum & Beautiful Trouble