Decolonial hacking of higher education: reflections on the collective relational praxis of building a School of Social Sciences in Belgium

Abstract

Calls for the decolonization of higher education (HE) have multiplied across the globe. In the scientific literature, decolonial theory has flourished at a conceptual level, yet there remains a critical need to deepen our understanding and articulation of its modalities and praxis in HE. Drawing on the notion of "decolonial hacking", we - three faculty members in different professional positions with different racialized positionalities - introspectively collectively reflect on decolonial praxis in HE based on our involvement in building a School of Social Sciences in a Belgian university. Decolonial hacking allows us to reveal decolonization as a collective praxis that attempts to decolonize knowledge production by changing the nature of relations between (1) faculty and students, (2) among faculty, and (3) between the university and civil society actors on which the production of academic knowledge rests.