Decolonisation of knowledge governance in Kazakhstan: an autoethnographic inquiry into faculty study tours in Japan

Purpose This study aims to analyse the author's role in navigating the “hybrid coloniality” of Kazakhstani higher education. It explores how the author sought to deconstruct the epistemic frameworks of knowledge governance through study tours organised for Kazakhstani faculty in Japan. Design/methodology/approach This paper employs autoethnography to centre the author's personal narrative, emotional labour and ethical dilemmas as a “bridging scholar”. It moves beyond observation to examine the researcher's own vulnerability and the power dynamics involved in mediating between two distinct academic spheres. Findings The narrative reveals that facilitating epistemic disruption requires substantial emotional labour and continual negotiation of an “insider-outsider” identity. The author finds that decolonisation in this context is not a systemic overthrow but a relational process of unsettling taken-for-granted norms, in which she herself remains implicated in the power structures she seeks to critique. Originality/value By reframing the study tour as a site of mutual epistemic struggle rather than knowledge transfer, this paper contributes to decolonial literature by illustrating how “epistemic disruption” operates at the micro level. It offers a nuanced account of the anxieties inherent in decolonial praxis in post-Soviet Central Asia.