The Decolonial Imperative: a Postcolonial Critique

The imperative to decolonize has now taken several disciplines by storm. For many, the foil of the call to decolonize are postcolonial approaches, presented as tainted by coloniality and as having a reduced to non-existent liberating potential. This essay highlights critiques of the Latin American decolonial project, including decoloniality as an academic power struggle leading to self-progression and enrichment of global north academics and institutions, lack of self-awareness of its own entanglements in coloniality, and forms of intellectual fundamentalism and policing of thought under claims of virtuosity. The essay closes by pointing out that the decolonial project also complements the current and ongoing corporatization of universities.