The politics of science: A postscript

Abstract

Abstract This postscript deliberates the wider implications of decolonising the academy. It takes point of departure in the often-contentious public discourse on the topic and asks, why is the decolonisation agenda so concerning to public officials and the target of public policy? In many ways, derisive and irreverent responses to efforts to decolonise universities, schools, and the curricula is only expected seeing as it has the potential to disrupt the futures of the beneficiaries of colonial norms, practices, and institutions. But equally, the decolonisation agenda is contentious as it unsettles the assumption that scientific knowledge production is an apolitical affair. There are of course ample examples of scientific ‘progress’ being deeply indebted to histories and legacies of colonialism. However, it is in revealing this politics of science that decolonisation finds wider political relevance as not just an effort to recognise and remedy the legacies of colonisation in the academy. It also reveals the politics that is embedded in what we know and, in doing so, underlines the fallibility of a singular (scientific) frame, means of measurement, or rule of inference for understanding a social reality. In fact, decolonisation understood in this way is about opening up the possibility of acknowledging there isn’t a social reality. Every social phenomenon can be experienced in a multiplicity of ways and therefore reimagining IR in view of decolonising it requires a political response that empirically, methodologically, and theoretically forefronts the multiplicity of perspectives and experiences that have thus far been marginalised in the studying and understanding of social realities.