Episodes
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In Episode 3, we will explore what it means to challenge (post)colonial hierarchies in the classroom together with Amya Agarwal and Swati Parashar. The classroom is a space which can serve to promote critical thinking, a space that not only provides the possibility of reimagining the fundamentals of academic disciplines but that also allows for critical students and radical scholarship to emerge and thrive.
Bios:
Amya Agarwal is a lecturer of International Relations at the University of Sheffield, UK. Prior to moving to the UK, she was a senior researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, Freiburg, Germany (2021â2023) and a postdoctoral fellow in Duisburg, Germany (2019â2021). She received her PhD from the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi, India in 2017. In the past, she has held teaching positions in the University of Delhi, South Asian University, University of Freiburg and University College Freiburg. Amya's research lies at the intersection of gender, conflict and security. In particular, she studies and writes about masculinities, motherhood, art and aesthetics in times of violence and resistance.
Swati Parashar is a Professor of Peace and Development at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden. Her teaching and research have led to academic appointments and fellowships in India, Singapore, the UK, the US, Ireland, Australia, and Sweden. She has also taught at the University of Rwanda in Kigali and at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. Swati is a member of the Swedish Development Research Network and has served on the Scientific Advisory Board ofSIDA. Her research interests include feminism, postcolonialism, research methodologies, gender-based violence, famines, and development in South Asia and East Africa. She has published numerous journal special issues, articles, policy papers, and popular media pieces. In 2025, she will be honored as the Distinguished Scholar of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section at the ISA Convention in Chicago.
Further Information and readings:
bell hooks (1994): Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. New York and London. Routledge.
Jenny Edkins: âGlobal Politicsâ as basis of Professor Parasharâs seminar
Audre Lorde (1984): âUses of the Eroticâ
Audre Lorde and bell hooks as central Black feminist scholars
Swati Parashar (2016): âFeminism and Postcolonialism: (En)gendering Encountersâ
Swati Parashar (2017): âFeminism Meets Postcolonialism: Rethinking Gender, State and Political Violenceâ
Conversation with J. Ann Tickner and Phillip Darby (2017) on âFeminism and Postcolonialism: The Twain Shall Meetâ, edited by Swati Parashar; Video of the conversation
Katherine Mayo (1927): âMother Indiaâ as an instrument of Indian control and policing bodies
Women Peace and Security Agenda (UN) promoting the idea of responsibility of Global North to save women. Adopted through Resolution 1325 by the UN Security Council in 2000.
1 in 5 Australian women face intimate partner violence: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Report on Personal Safety (2023)
Chandra Talpade Mohanty and L. H. M. "Lily" Ling as postcolonial feminists
Swati Parasharâs lecture on the coloniality and violence of famines in the Global South
Peace Adzo Medie: a feminist and postcolonial scholar who discussed the question of why the burden of decolonising academics lies with non-Whites
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In Episode 1, part 2 we discuss the Postcolonial Hierarchies Competence Network (which this podcast is a part of) and the networkâs project of confronting coloniality/modernity dynamics in peace and conflict studies with....
Siddharth Tripathi - Senior Research Fellow at University of Erfurt. As part of his research at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels, he has conducted extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Berlin and Brussels. He edited the Rowman and Littlefield Handbook on Peace and Conflict Studies: Perspectives from the Global South (s) which is a collaborative endeavour of scholars from the Global North and the Global South
...and Susanne Buckley-Zistel - Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Executive Director of the Center for Conflict Studies at the Philipps University Marburg. Her main interests lie in (transitional) justice, memory, gender, space and post-colonialism.
Links:
Achille Mbembe in Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive https://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/Achille%20Mbembe%20-%20Decolonizing%20Knowledge%20and%20the%20Question%20of%20the%20Archive.pdf
Agenda of Peace by Boutros Boutros Ghali (1992) as the foundation of the understanding of liberal peace (and development etc.)
An agenda for peace : (un.org)
Johan Galtungâs concepts of structural, cultural, and direct violence
Short video of Johann Galtung explaining his concepts of violence - YouTube
Stuart Hall: West/Rest-Dichotomy
https://globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers/hall-stuart/
Stuart Hall (1992): The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power
hal1995-westa (wordpress.com)
Edward W. Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi Bhaba as scholars of Postcolonialism Postcolonialism â GLOBAL SOCIAL THEORY
World Systems and Dependency Theory
Development theory - Dependency, World Systems, Theories | Britannica Money
AnĂbal Quijano, Maria Lugones and Walter D. Mignolo as scholars of Decoloniality
Decoloniality â GLOBAL SOCIAL THEORY
Gurminder Bhambra (2011) (Gurminder K Bhambra â Gurminder K Bhambra (gkbhambra.net)) on postcolonial and decolonial dialogues Full article: Postcolonial and decolonial dialogues (tandfonline.com)
âTheory is always for someone and for some purposeâ - Robert W. Cox: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03058298810100020501
âDealing with the Past and Reconciliation (Transitional Justice)â (2019)
https://transitionaljusticehub.org/glhimages/content/Interministerial-Strategy.pdf
Prof. Cori Wielenga from university of Pretoria who is working on an archive by female mediators
Prof Cori Wielenga | University of Pretoria (up.ac.za)
Paulo Freire on everybodyâs responsibility to create a more just world
Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Zinn Education Project (zinnedproject.org)
Paulo Freire (1970), Pedagogy of the Oppressed
[Paulo_Freire]_Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed(BookFi.org).pdf (amu.edu.et)
Paulo Freire (1992), Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Paulo Freire · Pedagogy of Hope · Pedagogy for Change (pedagogy4change.org)+
Gloria AnzaldĂșa as a theorist of hope
ANZALDĂA, Gloria E. â GLOBAL SOCIAL THEORY
The episode was moderated by Abdul Karim Ibrahim from the institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.
We also want to thank our team behind the scenes for the collaboration and contributions. We want to thank Abdul Karim Ibrahim for the introduction to this episode, Aurelio Cossar for the illustration of the cover and Harry and Tom Parfitt for the Jingle. It was inspired by Sheriff Ghaleâs piece called âNni Yeliâ.
For the preparation and recording of the podcast, we want to thank Miriam Bartelmann and Harry Parfitt. Furthermore we want to express our gratitude for the assistance on this podcast to Nora Wolf.
The equipment was provided by the media center of the University library in Freiburg, while Florian Laurösch from Radio Dreyeckland postproduced the podcast - thank you for the help and collaboration.
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Missing episodes?
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In Episode 1, part 1 of our podcast, we focus on coloniality and knowledge production with Manuela BoatcÄ - Professor of Sociology and Head of the Global Studies Programme at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Manuela has published widely on world-systems analysis, decolonial perspectives on global inequalities, gender and citizenship in modernity/coloniality, and the geopolitics of knowledge in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Her co-authored book, with Anca Parvulescu, titled âCreolizing the Modern. Transylvania Across Empiresâ was published last year. It has received different international awards and will be available not only in English, but soon also in German, and Romanian.
Links:
Marx & Engels (1848): Manifesto of the Communist Party
Communist Manifesto - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (rosalux.de)
Migration, slavery and colonialism as the underside of modernity â Enrique Dussel (1998): The Underside of Modernity
332.2002_ingl.pdf (enriquedussel.com)
Credits:
The episode was moderated by Abdul Karim Ibrahim from the institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.
We also want to thank our team behind the scenes for the collaboration and contributions. We want to thank Abdul Karim Ibrahim for the introduction to this episode, Aurelio Cossar for the illustration of the cover and Harry and Tom Parfitt for the Jingle. It was inspired by Sheriff Ghaleâs piece called âNni Yeliâ.
For the preparation and recording of the podcast, we want to thank Miriam Bartelmann and Harry Parfitt. Furthermore we want to express our gratitude for the assistance on this podcast to Nora Wolf.
The equipment was provided by the media center of the University library in Freiburg, while Florian Laurösch from Radio Dreyeckland postproduced the podcast - thank you for the help and collaboration.
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In Episode 2, we discuss the "big buzzwords" of postcolonial theory and decolonial thought: what they mean, why and when to use them, and the plurality and diversity within their origins. The guests for this episode were Layla Brown & Filiberto Penados.
Bios.:Layla D. Brown is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology & Africana Studies and affiliate faculty in Womenâs, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Laylaâs research focuses on Pan-African, Socialist, and Feminist social movements in Venezuela, the US, and the broader African Diaspora. She is working on completing her first book manuscript entitled An Anthropology of Pan-Africanism in the 21st Century, an ethnographic exploration of the rise of Pan-African/Feminist activism and social movements in Venezuela and the United States. Layla is also the co-host of a new podcast, âLife. Study. Revolution.â with Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly.
Dr. Filiberto Penados is a Co-Founder of CELA Belize and a Maya scholar whose work focuses on indigenous education and development. Dr. Penados has a long history of engaged scholarship with indigenous and local communities in Belize and a wealth of experience leveraging this involvement to create unique learning experiences.
Dr Penados has served as a professor at the University of Manitoba, University of Toronto, Galen University, and the University of Belize. He teaches courses on Sustainable Development, Natural Resource Management, and Education, and related fields. He also loves to play the guitar.
Links:
Postcolonialism as desire, anticolonial as struggle, decolonial as just fancy words â Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: CUSICANQUI, Silvia Rivera â GLOBAL SOCIAL THEORY
Decoloniality: coloniality and modernity as two sides of the same coin: See e.g. Walter Mignolo: MIGNOLO, Walter â GLOBAL SOCIAL THEORY
Filliberto Penadoâs interview on Belizean TV: Belize National Indigenous Council â Maya in South Belize â YouTube
Juliet Hooker on racism and indigeneity: Juliet Hooker: âThe closer you are to being indigenous, to being black, the lower you are in the racial hierarchyâ â Nicaraguan Perspectives (nicaperspectives.org)
Lebohang Pheko on Feminist Economics: Lebohang Pheko: Feminist economics is everything. The revolution is now! | TED Talk
An interview with Robin D.G. Kelley on universities: The Meaning of African American Studies | The New Yorker
Fernando Sarango on pluriversities: Prof. Dr. Fernando Sarango Macas â Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies â FRIAS (uni-freiburg.de)
Credits
The episode was moderated by Abdul Karim Ibrahim from the institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.
We also want to thank our team behind the scenes for the collaboration and contributions. We want to thank Abdul Karim Ibrahim for the introduction to this episode, Aurelio Cossar for the illustration of the cover and Harry and Tom Parfitt for the Jingle. It was inspired by Sheriff Ghaleâs piece called âNni Yeliâ.
For the preparation and recording of the podcast, we want to thank Rebecca Schmidt, Kristine DĂŒnkelsbĂŒhler and Miriam Bartelmann. Furthermore we want to express our gratitude for the assistance on this podcast to AdriĂ©n Francoise and Johanna Unewisse.
The equipment was provided by the media center of the University library in Freiburg, who also postproduced the podcast â thank you for the help and collaboration.
