As part of the UBC Connects series, the university’s anthropology and sociology departments hosted author and scholar Dr. Gurminder K. Bhambra, who held a masterclass on postcolonialism and modern social theory on January 25. The discussion focused on epistemological justice, reparations and the political economy of colonial relations, as well as the need to situate colonialism within a global context. While postcolonial theory is more commonly associated with the humanities, scholars like Bhambra have worked to expand its influence in the social sciences.
“It is crucial to think about how the experiences and claims of non-European others have been invisible to the dominant narratives and frameworks in academia,” Bhambra said. “I don’t think there is any aspect within the modern world in which we live that isn’t shaped and determined by 500 years of European colonization.”
In her masterclass, she called for the decolonization of critical theory, as well as the decolonization of university and the curricula circulating throughout the world today, much to the provocation of some of her colleagues who are interested in interrogating what people might understand as the “euro-centric” heart of academic knowledge.
But what does it actually mean to decolonize a tradition of thought? Bhambra brought up the example of the Frankfurt School of Social Theory, an institution that never explicitly addressed colonialism or colonial histories. “Rather than decolonize thought, I suggest that it is more productive to engage substantively with the history of colonialism and enslavement that is the context for the emergence of the colonial constitution of the modern world,” Bhambra said. According to Bhambra, it is necessary to question the adequacy of the grand narratives that structure the current world, as these are narratives that structure the contexts within which people understand themselves and others.
Student participants Teodora Rawsthorne Eckmyn, Bryan Leung and Makena Zimmerman were invited to the lecture to address their questions to Bhambra. The student questions ranged from the involvement of social theorists in criticizing neocolonial governments and the impact of decolonial theory on public policy, to the disproportionate responsibility placed on people of colour to lead the work on decolonization. Bhambra answered these through the concept of ‘epistemological justice,’ a concept based on the idea that colonial elements shape the possibilities of who has the power to assert their knowledge, as well as suppress indications of the problematic nature of their knowledge.
“For epistemological justice to happen, we must address how colonization was integral in shaping modernity, structuring both its knowledge claims and its institutions,” Bhambra argued.
According to Bhambra, there is a sense that people must admire the idea of the modern world. Moreover, there is an idea that humanity’s ability to continue growing is an amazing success story, despite all the past suffering it has entailed. But whether all of us have to celebrate the successes of some, despite the suffering of others, is what forms the core of postcolonial criticisms.
The modern world doesn't just emerge from ideas of rupture, separation or revolution. Instead, as Bhambra asserted, it emerges through “the connected and entangled history of European colonization.” Standard accounts of the modern world almost always orient themselves on the French and Industrial Revolutions, according to Bhambra. However, colonization, indenture, appropriation — including other, non Euro centric revolutions — are also significant to how the modern world has come into being. There are no problems in the world that are owned by any individual, says Bhambra — the problems that exist within the world exist between individuals.
“There is a hierarchy wherein there are those that generate the problems and those affected by these problems,” Bhambra said.
“The things that we need to do are read, listen and learn.”
Bhambra argued that reparations are in order, not only to disrupt the status quo in academia, but to recognize and repair the fractures that have been created within the world by these earlier systems of thought and their practices. In other words, she argued, it is important to make reparations, rather than focus on progressing from the past.
“The injustices of the past cannot be repaired, but reparations are not an argument for the return to somewhere,” Bhambra stated. But reparations are necessary to organize questions of justice for the future, as well as discuss how current understandings can be transformed to redistribute resources and address the inequalities that humans have inherited from the past.
The call for the transformation of Western traditions in academia is well overdue.
“I believe less in the decolonization of theory than I believe in theorists taking colonial history seriously, especially in their understanding of the modern world,” Bhambra said.
Ultimately, Bhambra believes that within a moment of global upheaval and crisis, a commitment to broadening the scope of academic discourse is necessary. It is only by working together to understand the inequalities within our shared past that opportunities are opened to a future that is different from the present.
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