Decolonising Political Concepts

At the crossroads of coloniality, power, and knowledge : it is time to decolonise political concepts / Valentin Clavé-Mercier and Marie Wuth -- Historicising history : a critique enabling view of history / Karim Barakat -- The recalcitrance of white ignorance / Laurencia Sáenz Benavides -- The idealised subject of freedom and the refugee / Shahin Nasiri -- Politics without a proper locus. Political agency between action and practice / Henrike Kohpeiss and Marie Wuth -- Enfleshed political violences. Rethinking sexual violence from a decolonial critique to the political construction of the body as flesh / Cecilia Cienfuegos -- On translation, the politics of language, and anti-authoritarian political practice in the Southern Mediterranean / Laura Galián -- Decolonising sovereignty and reimagining autonomy : adivasi assertions and interpretations of law / Astha Saxena and Radhika Chitkara -- Indigeneity, autochthony, and belonging : conceptual ambiguity as an impediment to decolonisation in South Africa / Rafael Verbuyst.

"This book presents a transdisciplinary and transnational challenge to the enduring coloniality of political concepts, discussing the need to decolonise both their theoretical constructions as well as their substantive translations into practices. Despite the acclaimed 20th century decolonisation waves, coloniality still remains in subtle and obvious practices, in visible and invisible mechanisms of power, in the privileging of certain knowledges and the dismissing of others. Decolonising Political Concepts critically addresses the role political concepts play in the continuing legacies of colonialism and ongoing coloniality. This book, building on postcolonial and decolonial thinkers and ideas, demonstrates how concepts may be used as oppressing political and epistemological tools. By presenting efforts to decolonise political concepts, the book signals the potential for genuinely postcolonial academic and political contexts. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and engaging with a wide array of geographical contexts, the chapters examine concepts such as agency, violence, freedom, or sovereignty. This book enables readers to critically engage with concepts used in political discourse and allows them to reflect on their impact and alternatives. It will appeal to graduate students and scholars from international relations, social sciences, or philosophy, as well as to socio-political actors engaged in decolonisation agendas"--