Beyond the coloniser’s model of the world: towards reworlding from the Global South

Abstract

The reworlding of the world from the Global South directly challenges the resilient coloniser’s model of the world. The coloniser’s model of the world sustains the contemporary hierarchical and asymmetrical modern world system with Europe and North America at its apex of power. Consequently, reworlding from the Global South materialised as a counter-hegemonic initiative driven by struggles of the wretched of the earth for re-existence, liberation and freedom. The epic Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), which embraced ‘Black’ as an identity of a sovereign people opposed to racism, enslavement and colonialism, forms an ideal genealogy of reworlding from the Global South. This article reflects on evolving ideological, identitarian, cultural, intellectual and pan-African formations and initiatives of resisting empire and remaking the world after the empire. What is highlighted are freedom dreams, self-definition initiatives, critiques of the asymmetrically structured modern world and struggles and visions of re-membering and re-humanisation of the dismembered and dehumanised. The Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall movements, among many other initiatives and formations, have carried over the struggles for reworlding the world from the Global South.