Stories of the canon (stories of the self): towards an intra-active decolonisation of higher education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to decolonisation theory and debates in Higher Education by thinking from the practice of diversifying subject reading lists. To illustrate the scene within which diversification efforts unfold I draw on primary research designed to explore the function of a subject canon (Urban Studies). Researched and written as an autoethnographic rhizoanalysis, I show that texts’ meanings are intertextually established through hegemonic processes of canonisation, which are curricular in effect; and which draw in readers as nodes through which the assemblage proliferates. Using Karen Barad’s concept of intra-activity to better articulate the materiality of this curricular assemblage and our inseparability from it, I critique the common practice of adding more diversity for its failure to attend to underlying logics and its edging out of more radical responses. I then discuss the decolonial openings that intra-action makes possible, focusing on its potential for producing different knowledge(s) through reading and research.