Colonizing and Decolonizing Projects of Re/Covering Spirituality

Abstract

In this postcolonial inquiry, we analyze how spirituality has been simultaneously appropriated/re-covered and re-appropriated/recovered for the purpose of (re)colonizing as well as decolonizing projects. By drawing from discrete yet interconnected literatures of decolonizing, (post)(anti)colonial, Indigenous, and ethnic studies based theories, we discuss the concept of transformative spirituality as a useful analytic lens. This project intersects with larger questions of neo/colonial historical and social structures and conditions of life such as empire, nation-state, race, gender, etc. Transformative aspects of spirituality not only critique how spirituality of the Others has been appropriated within the neo/colonial and neoliberal imagination for the salvation of the Western/neoliberal Self but also speaks about how spirituality can be a space of possibility or recovery for different marginalized communities. While providing decolonizing critiques on the current popularity of spirituality in Western societies as Orientalism and (re)colonization of the Others, we present how transformative spirituality can be mobilized to open up a space beyond Western-modern-colonial-scientific knowledge/truth/power regimes to serve political emancipatory goals. Despite historically situated different approaches toward decolonizing across variously colonized communities, our analysis on spirituality demonstrates how marginalized communities have always critiqued Orientalist spirituality and developed alternative spaces of spirituality that seek social change and transformative politics.