Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies

Decolonizing the Academy asserts that the academy is perhaps the most colonized space. As we enter the twenty-first century, this has become even clearer now that the academy is one of the primary sites for the production and re-production of ideas that serve the interests of colonizing powers. Operating at the macro level in terms of the state and at the micro level in various applications, these interests include the organization of the disciplines, the marginalization of interdisciplinary studies, the re-assertion of masculinities, and the operations of class, privilege, and hierarchy. This collection of essays argues that African diaspora theory has the possibility of interrupting the current colonizing process and re-engaging the decolonizing process at the level of the mind, as emphasized by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in an earlier contribution. In addition, the collection asserts that this will be an ongoing project worthy of being undertaken in a variety of fields of study as we confront the challenges of the twenty-first century.