An Archaeology of Postcolonial Discursive Strategies: Studies in Governmentalities of Education

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This chapter provides an overview of the many forms of postcolonial critiques as they apply to educational administration and leadership, in part as a critique of neoliberalism and globalization, but also from the perspective of preserving and maintaining the integrity of identity, culture, knowledge traditions, and social institutions of non-Western states and indigenous communities that have been colonized during various periods in history and in the contemporary world. Using Foucault’s concept of governmentality and enunciative dimensions of the archaeology of knowledge, the chapter explores memory, presence, and concomitance, as well as disruptions and ruptures that have produced the postcolonial critiques. This involves an examination of conceptions of education, its administration and leadership roles, curriculum and pedagogy, and the contextual factors of education as a social institution in society that differ significantly from Western countries. Emphasis is placed on the requirements of decolonizing educational organizations and the field of educational administration in order to restore teaching and research appropriate to the diversity of cultures and communities through a reconstruction that recognizes the human right, under UN resolutions to one’s culture and belief systems, of an inclusivity of others’ constitutional and legal systems, governance and administration practices, cultural structures and norms, and the way that social institutions are structured.KeywordsPostcolonialismDecolonizationSubalternityEpistemicideCultural securityNeocolonizationGlobalizationNeoliberalismIndigenous studiesGovernmentalityArchaeology of knowledge