Decolonial leadership for cultural resistance and social change: Challenging the social order through the struggle of identity

Abstract

The current article focuses on subaltern social groups’ efforts that emphasize the struggle of identity with purposes of cultural resistance and social change. Through a critical approach that incorporates the reality of “coloniality” as the context within leadership emerges, the article draws from the experience of a Native American organization in a middle-size city of the United States that uses identity as a resource to challenge the dominant Eurocentric social order. The construct of “decolonial leadership” is proposed to illuminate the emancipatory process of this organization that aims to decolonize society debunking myths and narratives imposed with the dominant social order and taking control of reality from their cultural perspectives and leadership approaches. A process of decolonial leadership creates spaces from which developing collective actions and sense-making processes that eventually contribute to building symbolic power to change the dominant social order. Using a sociological and anthropological lens that challenges leader-centered perspectives and focuses on the collective dimensions of leadership, the study contributes insights to both the social change and the indigenous leadership literature.