Hegemonic Knowledge Research Articles

A “Criminal Tribe” in Post-Colonial India

Today deemed a PVTG, or Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group of West Bengal, the Lodhas (also known as Shabar) were categorized as a “criminal tribe” under British colonial rule and as a Denotified Tribe in the 1950s. This epistemic violence perpetrated by the British has remained deeply embedded within the hegemonic knowledge system of post-Independence India, and the Lodhas continue to be subjected to various humiliations and everyday violence by the rural population to this day, not only in their interaction with upper-caste and upper-class dominant groups, but also by upper-class members of other socially marginalized communities. Epistemic violence, therefore, has resulted in the destruction of the marginalized community’s ability to speak and to be heard, and has left most community members trapped within a situation of extremepoverty. This paper focuses on the representations of the lived experience of poverty in the autobiographical writings of Chuni Kotal, a young Lodha woman who died by suicide in 1992. These writings, in fact, are one of the few examples of self-representation on the part of the Lodhas, for most of whom education remains a distant dream. The paper analyses how the formal education system and the persistence of deeply ingrained social stereotypes serve to deny opportunities for self-advancement to those who reside at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Struggles over memory?

AbstractIn this contribution, I introduce decolonial memory activism as struggle over meaning (Deutungskampf). Decolonial memory activism is understood as a specific form of memory activism that calls for the decolonization of both memory culture and politics, which necessitates a confrontation with dynamics of violence, power, and oppression. Unlike research that has primarily focused on the contents of collective memory, I argue that decolonial memory activism seeks to fundamentally challenge and transform the epistemological foundations of collective memory itself. Grounded in decolonial theories and drawing from a shared resolution of decolonial memory activists across Germany, I illustrate three interwoven elements of hegemonic knowledge that are being challenged by decolonial memory activism: nationalism, temporality, and the storage model of memory. Through this lens, the paper suggests that an understanding of struggles over memory gains more depth by considering the epistemic dimensions of these struggles. Such an approach opens up new possibilities for peace and conflict research as well as for social and political transformations.

Negotiating caste, gendered and colonial subjectivities in the neoliberal academy

This paper highlights how researchers are subjugated through hegemonic academic norms and how they simultaneously recognize the privileges attached to their subject positions. I illustrate difficulties in negotiating my privileges, particularly of caste, and my experiences of marginalisation as a ‘third world woman’ in the European academy. Such competitive insecurity is illustrative of both neoliberal logics of enterprise and responsibility as well as caste-based logics of merit and deservingness. Academia as a field of knowledge production historically consolidates power in the hands of a shrinking set of elites. Attitudes of competition and uncertainty produce subjects that turn to selfinterested modes of acquiring and analysing data, thereby producing hegemonic knowledges, which ignores the situatedness and politics of the research context. Caste is addressed together with gender, coloniality, ability, sexuality and ethnicity (among other subjectivities) as an intersectional co-producer of exclusion. Invoking caste-based imperialist logics is essential for unpacking the privileged subjectivities that produce elitism and exclusion in academia and in knowledge production.

Losing the Battle and Awareness of Unveiling the Postcolonial Struggle Against Western Philosophical Hegemony in Indonesian Aesthetic Textbooks

Objective: The objective of this research is to explore the hegemonic construction of Western philosophical concepts in Indonesian aesthetic textbooks, the methods of their construction, and the factors reinforcing this hegemony. Theoretical Framework: In this topic, can be analyzed through key postcolonial and orientalist frameworks, including Edward Said's concept of orientalism, which examines how Western discourses construct and dominate Eastern identities. Method: This study employs a qualitative research methodology with a naturalistic paradigm, utilizing a hermeneutic approach and descriptive qualitative analysis based on the Miles and Huberman model. Results and Discussion: The results show that Western hegemony is evident in the content of aesthetics textbooks in Indonesia, both in the substantive content domain of the subject matter and the figures. This hegemonic construction is propagated through persuasive methods. The enduring nature of Western-biased knowledge construction, mainly fuelled by the orientalist-postcolonial system, significantly reinforces this hegemony. Therefore, this research underlines the scenario of culture losing the battle and especially the effort to build awareness of unveiling the struggle to overcome the dominance of Western philosophy that is permeating Indonesian aesthetic education. Research Implications: The study reveals that Indonesian aesthetic textbooks heavily feature Western philosophical concepts, constructed, and reinforced through persuasive, non-coercive methods. Utilizing a qualitative research approach, it uncovers that Western hegemony is evident both substantively and in the representation of key figures within these textbooks. This enduring Western bias, perpetuated by orientalist systems, significantly influences Indonesian aesthetic education, highlighting the deep-rooted nature of this hegemonic knowledge construction. Originality/Value: This study offers original insights into the pervasive influence of Western philosophical concepts in Indonesian aesthetic textbooks, highlighting their construction and reinforcement through persuasive methods rather than coercion. Employing a qualitative methodology with a hermeneutic approach and descriptive analysis, it uncovers the substantive and figure-level dominance of Western ideas, driven by orientalist systems. This research contributes valuable understanding of the enduring nature of Western-biased knowledge construction in Indonesian aesthetic education, emphasizing the need for a critical re-evaluation of curricular content.

Exploring Pluriverse: A Decolonial Examination of the Pakistan Independence Movement through Hamza Alavi’s Works

This study offers a decolonial study of Hamza Alavi’s discernment on the Pakistan independence movement in the theoretical framework of decoloniality by Walter Mignolo. It endeavors to unearth indigenous intellection of the post-colonial Pakistan that confronts the hegemonic knowledge claims that tends to essentialize the Pakistan independence movement. This research intends to explore the ductile pluriversality of narratives and border thinking versus the inflexible concept of a single ideology based on religion as the driving force of the Pakistan independence movement. The significance of this study lies in bringing forward literary decoloniality by promoting critical thinking from post-colonial Pakistan. Mignolo’s concepts of pluriversality and border thinking provide a theoretical lens through which to interpret Alavi's notion of Pakistan's independence movement in the contemporary era. By deploying an interdisciplinary approach encompassing perspectives from politics, history, and cultural studies, this research explores deeper, covert layers of multifarious factors that accelerated the partition of the subcontinent, leading to Pakistan's independence.

Power and place: Uncovering the politics of global medical education.

Politics is characterised by power relations, and the deployment of power is inescapably political. In an increasingly globalised and interconnected modern world, politics is shaping the field of medical education more than ever before. Global frameworks that classify peoples and places are political tools that are fundamentally shaped by hegemonic knowledge systems. Despite this, they continue to form the basis for global thinking and practices, including in medical education. Political analysis can help to expose and challenge such thinking. To better understand impacts of globalisation in medical education, we explore the previously under-examined political dimensions that underpin it, focusing particularly on deconstructing power relations. We situate our analysis of global medical education in political terms, including through examination of ideology, economics, market and the enduring effects of colonialism. We interrogate the construct of the Global South (GS), considering the geopolitical and historical ideas that have enabled it to be widely propagated. We go on to examine the consequences of the GS construct in medical education and consider what this tells us about how power is enacted in the field. In analysing the politics of global medical education, we shed light on how power is exerted and draw attention to forces that permit and enable trends, policies and positions. Notwithstanding the emancipatory rhetoric that has been associated with the GS construct, we highlight its reductive potential and argue that it can lead to an oversimplification of power relations and vested interests. Given the growing recognition that educational approaches do not transfer well across countries and cultures, we encourage the medical education community to consider why ideas from more dominant countries continue to be imitated so routinely. In doing so, we urge them to use political lenses to recognise the influence of multiple complex and interconnected forces of global power that shape all aspects of medical education.

Sonic Epistemologies: Confrontations with the Invisible

Abstract With reference to Steven Feld’s “acoustemology,” his epistemology of sounding and listening, developed in the Bosavi Rainforest in Papua New Guinea, where the trees are too dense to afford a distant view and meaning has to be found up close, on the body with other human and more-than-human bodies, this essay deliberates how sound knows in entanglements and from the in-between: in a being with as a knowing with rather than from a distance. In this way, this essay, from the densities of the rainforest, critiques Western knowledge and its reliance on visual categories, straight lines, and universalising principles that pretend objectivity and a distant view. Instead, it turns to the relational indivisibility of sound that lets us hear interdependencies and confronts us with the invisible of which we are part. In conclusion, it proposes that sound studies as applied, transversal studies enable such a paradigm shift that at once reveals what hegemonic knowledge strands exclude and invites a different dialogue from the in-between of everything.

Public pedagogues of change: advocacy networks, civil society organisations, and self-help authors in Mexico

ABSTRACT This article explores informal adult education for change in Mexico through the conceptual lens of social movement learning and public pedagogy. It adopts a multiple case design featuring two advocacy networks, two civil society organisations, and two self-help authors. It analyses how they position themselves as change agents addressing issues of food sovereignty, violence against women, social justice, environmental justice, financial insecurity, and emotional health. The article deconstructs how such agents diagnose problems and prescribe solutions that share a common logic: the unlearning of hegemonic knowledges and the learning of alternatives. It presents a continuum of pedagogical strategies, ranging from the most public (spectacular protests and social media work) to most private (targeted lobbying and workshopping). It contributes, methodologically and analytically, to literature at the intersection of social movement learning and public pedagogy. Methodologically, in a field dominated by stand-alone case studies from North America, it offers a comparative study of three domains of informal adult education in Mexico. Analytically, it unpacks public pedagogical messaging common to these domains and explain the strategies, interests and political implications that differentiate them. We encourage educators to assess the range of public pedagogical work that may be mobilised in the pursuit of change.

Para Desestabilizar Deficiências: uma análise de implicações aleijada

ABSTRACT The aim is to discuss some intersections in the process of doing research in the disability’s field. To weave these problematizations, extracts from a survey carried out with disabled students who entered a federal public university through the affirmative action policy are used. To cripple the implications analysis, it is suggested to invest in the ethical-political power of the existence of difference, anticipate and desire diversity in the most diverse spaces, contexts, and academic temporalities, destabilize hegemonic knowledge and, finally, assume an ethical-political position committed to the anti-ableism struggle.

Português como língua adicional em uma universidade brasileira: encontros em espaços de aprendizagem de línguas e conflitos entre formas de saber

ABSTRACT In this article I analyse narratives about Portuguese as an Additional Language (PAL) learning spaces within a Brazilian university in order to show how ways of knowing, or epistemic differences, can be tied to the production of linguistic differences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two PAL educators and one Japanese student. To conduct the analysis, I focus on the ways in which participants ‘scale the world’. This line of analysis demonstrated that participants construct hierarchies between learners and between knowledges based on ideas of West and East. In concluding, I argue that university administration and staff need to engage in urgent epistemological dialogue and praxis concerning language policy and practice in language learning spaces, in order to diminish the possibility of reproducing hegemonic knowledges.

Hegemonic Knowledge and Situated Knowledge

What is power? What is knowledge? What is the link between power and knowledge? This paper interrogates the relationship between knowledge and power in the context of Guinea's epidemic crises and political events. It draws on observational data collected during the Ebola epidemic (2013-2016), the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), and the ongoing military transition in the country since September 2021. The article first looks at the conception of the relationship between power and knowledge in decolonial literature and the writings of Amadou Hampâté Bâ. The text then describes this relationship in the context of the Ebola and Covid-19 epidemics, and in the ongoing political transition. Finally, the analysis provides an epistemological reflection on knowledge-situated in Guinea to rethink the conceptual and empirical research perspective on the production and circulation of (academic) knowledge in the country's knowledge ecology.

Artificial Intelligence in the Colonial Matrix of Power

Drawing on the analytic of the “colonial matrix of power” developed by Aníbal Quijano within the Latin American modernity/coloniality research program, this article theorises how a system of coloniality underpins the structuring logic of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. We develop a framework for critiquing the regimes of global labour exploitation and knowledge extraction that are rendered invisible through discourses of the purported universality and objectivity of AI. ​​Through bringing the political economy literature on AI production into conversation with scholarly work on decolonial AI and the modernity/coloniality research program, we advance three main arguments. First, the global economic and political power imbalances in AI production are inextricably linked to the continuities of historical colonialism, constituting the colonial supply chain of AI. Second, this is produced through an international division of digital labour that extracts value from majority world labour for the benefit of Western technology companies. Third, this perpetuates hegemonic knowledge production through Western values and knowledge that marginalises non-Western alternatives within AI’s production and limits the possibilities for decolonising AI. By locating the production of AI systems within the colonial matrix of power, we contribute to critical and decolonial literature on the legacies of colonialism in AI and the hierarchies of power and extraction that shape the development of AI today.

Exercising agency through embodied research and the making of screendances

The politics of the home was often a focus in second-wave feminist art in the West. Influenced by Betty Friedan's The feminist mystique (1963), which challenged the notion that women were content to be wives, mothers, and homemakers, artists often represented the domestic milieu as a space of oppression. Friedan's ideas would, however, be challenged by bell hooks, who indicated that such perceptions assumed a woman who was middle-class and white. As hooks observed in Feminist theory: from margin to center (1984:2), Friedan 'did not tell readers whether it was more fulfilling to be a maid, a babysitter, a factory worker, a clerk, or a prostitute, than to be a leisure class housewife'. It should also be noted that Friedan's views were shaped by a US-specific context and that the politics of home, domesticity, marriage, or parenthood may be perceived very differently in geographies outside the United States or the West, more generally, including South Africa.

The Corona Truth Wars: Epistemic Disputes and Societal Conflicts around a Pandemic—An Introduction to the Special Issue

Ever since the start of the Corona pandemic, different and often conflicting views have emerged about the virus and how to appropriately deal with it. Such epistemic, societal, and economic criticisms, including those about government imposed measures, have often been dismissed as dangerous forms of conspiratorial disinformation that should be (and have been) excluded from the realm of reasonable political discussion. However, since these critiques of emerging hegemonic knowledge and policies often involve significant and complex questioning of epistemic and political claims, and since corresponding plausibilities change over time, such clear distinctions between correct knowledge and foolish, fraudulent, and/or dangerous, disinformation are not easy to draw. In fact, they can be considered political acts in these epistemic disputes over the pandemic. These conflicts, which we refer to as the “Corona Truth Wars,” are not just about knowledge, but have turned into societal conflicts and even outright identity wars that run through families, circles of friends, organizations, and entire societies. In this special issue, we illuminate these dynamics by bringing together a range of scholars who have been struck by the complexity of these controversies and their far-reaching social consequences. Far from understanding these controversies as simple dichotomies between truth and disinformation, or between disinterested science and manipulative politics, these scholars are interested in the various ways in which these dimensions are intertwined. Building on a long tradition of exploring (scientific) knowledge controversies, the six contributions to this special issue show how epistemic struggles over truth are not only fought in the realm of science, but increasingly manifest and interact in everyday politics, social media platforms, daily talk shows, and family dinners. The scholars brought together in this issue, with diverse disciplinary backgrounds and from different geographical regions (Denmark, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Israel), present their studies on the various epistemic and social conflicts that have emerged during the Corona pandemic of the last three years.

Rethinking African-European Scientific Cooperation: The Case of the Platform for African-European Studies

African universities rely on teaching traditions and scientific theories based on Western epistemologies and ontologies. Interactions between European and African scholars too tend to focus on the deficits in African experiences, knowledge, research and teaching methodologies and the poor economic environments in which they operate that are characterized by inadequate infrastructure and budgets. This essay discusses an emerging opportunity in science diplomacy within African-European Union (EU) interactions in higher education and argues that a fundamental revision of the imbalances in African-European scholarly relationships is possible. The essay uses the case of the emerging Platform for African–European Studies, which involves 22 universities (including 14 in Africa and eight in Europe) and underscores the importance of science diplomacy, knowledge co-creation and co-production to correct hegemonic knowledge about Africa. It explores the origins of the programme, its attempt to follow a critical global and decolonized approach in addressing the revision of curricula both in Europe and in Africa and the co-design of research. It concludes by highlighting some of the obstacles to disrupting the status-quo.

The Hashtag Syllabus as Class Assignment: From Information Literacy to Cultural Critique

In recent years, scholar-activists have used hashtag syllabus movements to organize and share curricular resources related to pressing social and cultural issues in a widely accessible format. These collaboratively designed readings lists have provided many classroom-based educators with diverse and far-reaching texts with which to engage students on issues of social injustice and structural inequality. In this paper, we argue that having students develop hashtag syllabi in the context of interdisciplinary social science courses not only provides access to a breadth and depth of content knowledge and a range of perspectives on these topics but creates the conditions in which students can develop and strengthen critical information literacy skills. Using example assignments from introductory and upper-level undergraduate courses, we demonstrate the potential of these assignments to promote deep learning, challenge hegemonic knowledge production, address the personal and affective components of research, and connect our students’ work in the classroom to problems that exist outside of it.

An anti‐genealogical take on US anthropology and disciplinary reform

AbstractThe “decolonizing generation” is a critical new movement that has captured the imaginations of many younger scholars. While the author would like to consider herself an older member of this generation, she questions whether this moment needs periodization. Is today's moment really so different from the past, when we saw the rise of world anthropologies, postmodernism, the crisis in representation, neo‐Marxism, and anti‐racist movements? And what is meant by “decolonizing anthropology” when experiences with colonialism and decolonization differ around the world? While acknowledging the value of reforming the discipline, the author encourages her colleagues to separate the very important critique of anthropologists’ gatekeeping practices from idealized renderings of what anthropology should be. Rather than decolonization, the discipline ought to focus on establishing a continual decentering of hegemonic knowledge production.

Toward Cognitive Justice: Reconstructions of Climate Finance Governance in Fiji

In response to climate change’s devastating impacts on Pacific nations such as Fiji, climate finance—that is, the flow of public and private funds toward climate-aligned investment—has been presented as a promising solution. However, climate finance has had mixed results in delivering positive climate-aligned development benefits. In this article, we explore the climate finance governance around Fiji’s energy sector using postcolonial analytical tools, which allow us to explore some of the asymmetries playing out in climate finance and offer some alternatives. We argue that climate finance dysfunction is, in part, derived from the application of hegemonic knowledges in climate finance governance, and we aim to deconstruct these knowledge practices and subsequently, through the analysis of empirical, ethnographic data, to reconstruct governance alternatives that provide for epistemic inclusivity. This article demonstrates how Indigenous approaches such as talanoa and ‘iluvatu can facilitate recognition of governance innovation, and, in doing so, it considers the potential of cognitive justice, which calls for epistemic inclusivity, within the context of climate finance governance. The article concludes that including cognitive justice in climate finance governance can indeed promote better climate-aligned development benefits in Fiji and beyond.

Knowledge and the governing of the interventionary object: Mali in the German parliament

AbstractWhile studies on the role of knowledge and expertise have seen a resurgence of interest in International Relations and in literature on peacebuilding and security governance, little is known how knowledge enters the governance routines after the initial establishment of peacebuilding operations. Taking the mandate decision-making process of MINUSMA and EUTM operations in Mali in the German parliament as case for our explorative study, we ask how knowledge has entered the parliamentary process and how various epistemic practices and epistemic agency shape this peacebuilding governance since 2013. Informed by an object-centred knowledge framework, we argue that the practices and types of agency involved mostly ‘lock-in’ the governing of robust peacebuilding in Mali in much broader foreign- and security policies routines. Epistemic practices are not primarily concerned with new impulses or critical analysis, but with rendering Mali governable as interventionary object. The epistemic authority of the government is dominant and we do not find much evidence that hegemonic knowledge is challenged. Intervening agents do extract certain knowledge via transnational channels from Mali, however, broader knowledge debates or the involvement of Malian agents are missing.

Non-governmental organisations and the politics of mining law review in Malawi: Bifurcations, subjectivities and contested emancipation agenda

In response to NGOs’ demand that mining must benefit communities living around the mining areas, the Government of Malawi reviewed the 1981 MMA. About six local NGOs actively participated in the processes of reviewing the Act. The review of any law, however, involves bargaining amongst political actors holding different interests and power. Mobilizing the concept of governmentality, this paper investigates how and, in whose interests, NGOs that were involved in the review of the 1981 MMA in Malawi shaped the mining review processes. While grassroots struggles against the extractive industry are not new, increased NGOs’ advocacy action in the sector provides new avenues for understanding current forms and structure of struggles. Employing a qualitative research approach (in-depth interviews, focus group discussion and participant observation), the study findings demonstrate how NGOs’ advocacy action through political processes resulted into NGOs’ bifurcated royalties and subjectivities into hegemonic knowledges and rationalities. Thus, the paper questions the conventional argument on NGO political empowerment agenda for marginalised communities by demonstrating how technocratic processes of policymaking within hegemonic structures produces environmental subjects that (re)construct agendas along the interests of powerful actors.