On epistemic decentralising: infrastructuring knowledge beyond global North

Abstract

ABSTRACT The history of science has shown that knowledge has tended to be concentrated in a few places. This required a set of institutions, practices and infrastructures that operated globally. These were articulated with broader trends, such as capitalist and colonial expansion. Subsequently, this concentration allowed these places to become centres of knowledge production, from which theories and conceptual frameworks often spread to all corners of the world. In recent years, such knowledge has been described (and denounced) as Eurocentric, colonial, patriarchal and classist by various currents, from feminism to post-colonialism. In doing so, scholars have opened up the possibility of a decentring of canons that has brought new and refreshing standpoints to the fore. However, for such questioning to transcend the level of ideas, curricula and mainstream currents, a decentralisation of institutions, practices and infrastructures is needed to re-integrate, but in different ways, the marginalised parts of science in a more egalitarian configuration. This article theoretically analyses these notions of epistemic decentring and decentralisation and presents two empirical cases to show the possibilities and challenges of such a process.