Of Theological Burglaries and Epistemic Violence

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore how the historical roots of Black and other liberation theologies are undermined through the usurping of the vocabulary of decolonial language. Through a critical discourse analysis of a selected publication, we demonstrate how the foregrounding of perspectives, the trivializing of positionality and power, and the privileges accrued by proximity result in the plunder and proprietorship of decolonial archives and Black theological history. This, we argue, is a form of epistemic violence, a supreme irony when laying claim to a decolonial framing within scholarship. Adapting the method of “epistemic violence tracking,” as theorized by philosopher Kristie Dotson, we track the ways in which epistemic violence occurs through various discourses even within scholarship claiming to be decolonial. By bringing the discursive constructs of perspective, positionality, and proximity to bear on the research that is passed off as decolonial, we demonstrate how Black and other liberation theologies are not only fetishized but plundered and possessed through unjust means.