On the Materiality of Decolonization

This article locates contemporary debates over decolonial theory at the intersection of two contradictory dynamics: ongoing global struggles against the legacies of colonialism, and the co‐optation and watering down of decolonial theory, particularly within academia. Following O.O. Táíwò’s diagnosis of ‘elite capture’, the author views decolonial theory as a terrain of struggle against both external threats from institutional power structures and the internal threat of an epistemological reductionism that tacitly relocates decolonization to the realm of ideas and, by extension, to academia. The misuse of decolonial theory does not mean it should be rejected out of hand, however; instead, it should be anchored in the broad material struggle for control of land, labour and resources that is crystallized by the demand for ‘land back’.