Decolonisation in History and in the Academy — "Whose History?" Part I
- HistoryDSC
- Nov 12, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 4, 2022
By Kai Siallagan
Discussions of decolonisation are becoming increasingly prevalent in contemporary academia. Historians often pride themselves in the critical lenses with which they scrutinise the world around them. Naturally, it would seem that history would be a nexus of discussions of decolonisation. However, despite this supposed criticality, “decolonisation” often stops short of effective action in history.
In the academy at large, discussions of decolonisation can be problematic as they often presume a white audience with a uniform, colonised worldview. In other words, a call to “decolonise ourselves” presumes that students and staff all belong to one demographic that experiences and connects with issues of colonialism in one way, thereby excluding those whose perceptions of colonialism may be different from mainstream – and typically white – experiences (e.g. Indigenous, Black, Asian, etc.). A friend recently related a story to me of their (white) professor saying to the class, “we [the class] cannot understand the struggles of people of colour.” The friend who told me this story (who was a part of this class) is herself a person of colour. The message is clear; “we must decolonise ourselves” translates to "the academy is a space created for the mainstream white experience and worldview", therefore implying that marginalised groups and their experiences with colonialism do not belong here.
So how does this intersect with history? This year (2021-2022 Fall and Winter) in Queen’s undergraduate department of history, 34 of 80 topical classes (ranging from 100-level lectures to upper-year seminars) explicitly focus on Europe, the USA, or Canada (in my experience, the latter two largely excluding Indigenous and other POC groups in their narratives) compared with 3 Indigenous history courses (2 of which revolve around their relationship with Europeans), 3 Black (African-American) history, and 9 regional histories outside of Europe, Canada and the United States (divided among Latin American, Africa, Asia, and Oceania). The list goes on. These numbers are notwithstanding Eurocentric themes or preferences within courses. I, for one, am skeptical that Europe, Canada, and the USA have that much more recorded history than everywhere else.
Eurocentric bias is not endemic to Queen’s history, however. Historiography at large, for instance, is rife with colonial assumptions that underpin the Western practice of history. One such issue is how historians define credibility of sources. History in academia heavily gatekeeps perceptions of “proper knowledge,” i.e. knowledge derived from primary or “reputable” secondary sources. Oral tradition, traditional cultural beliefs, and other forms of knowledge are judged esoteric and therefore invalid. Intentionally or not, this marginalises and excludes vast swathes of communities across the world whose cultures have historically existed outside of written tradition in a Western style. In doing so, historians take these peoples’ cultural narratives and understandings of the world – which historians deem invalid due to their incongruency with Western historiographical assumptions – and replace them with narratives based on “evidence.” This “evidence”, of course, is created from methods particular to Western traditions of historiographical study and not necessarily objectively accurate in itself.
Unfortunately, I can really only scratch the surface of Western biases history and academia in this article. I do not intend to ignore progress being made towards decolonising these subjects, but it is nonetheless important to be vigilant and critical of the way these motions are executed, especially in a society dominated by a single worldview and its underlying assumptions.
"Whose History?" links to other parts:
