Abstract
This chapter outlines a “grammar of decolonial thinking,” via a consideration of three of the conceptual moves that decolonial thinkers make in their analysis of colonialism and modernity. The first of these is to backdate the relationship between colonialism and modernity to include the Portuguese and Spanish “New World” empires. The second is to focus on questions of knowledge and epistemology, and the third is to refuse the label of theory. The chapter distinguishes decolonial thinking from postcolonial theory, and outlines some key terms, including coloniality, epistemic decolonization, and the colonial difference. It further offers brief decolonial readings of two related disciplines, archaeology and linguistics. Work on a decolonial analysis of archaeology is quite far advanced. In this chapter, it is offered as a case study that points towards possible future trajectories and lines of analysis for the discipline of linguistics as it engages colonial pasts and decolonial futures.
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