‘This is not what science is’: Researchers’ perspectives on doing decolonial research in Flemish (Belgian) higher education

Despite the sociological attention paid to the role of racism in producing racial inequalities in universities, few studies have examined epistemic coloniality and marginalization at the level of social knowledge within academia. Foregrounding the university context, where anti-colonial knowledge is simultaneously marginalized, this article asks what the possibilities are for decolonial critiques of knowledge within universities. Based on interviews with racialized PhD researchers of colour, this study examines the possibilities and challenges of conducting decolonial research within a university context. We argue that the epistemic frameworks of social sciences are intrinsically racialized, fostering exclusionary modes of thought and practices that align with racial and socio-geographical lines. Second, this study reveals how dominant conceptions of scientific validity and neutrality in social sciences sustain the epistemic status quo, contributing to ‘epistemic coloniality’ by invalidating decolonial researchers.