Engaging with Culture: A Conversation on Decolonising the Future

One of the key features of future humanities research and teaching will be to enable intellectual and creative spaces within and beyond institutional settings that critically explore knowledge-making from a decolonising perspective and approach. Palestinian scholar Edward Said regarded culture as a fundamental place to consider the interdependent relationship between established traditions and the complex diversities of the world. He advocated for public intellectual and creative spaces where the social responsibilities and priorities of writers, educators, artists, poets and intellectuals could emerge with their radical and transformative energies. Our conversation will take up Said's call by pivoting towards aspects of culture where knowledge-making might be radically decolonised as a priority for the future. We will draw on our scholarship and experience of epistemic violence regarding Ethiopian knowledge-making, as well as living as cultural "others" in western settler societies.