"Let's Talk About a De(Kolla)nization": Political and Epistemic Debate From Within the Bolivian Academe

• In Event: 30.027 - Decolonial Utopics, Voices, and Visions

Abstract

This paper explores how Indigenous social actors, such as an administrator from a local educational NGO and two professors from a public and a private education higher education institution in Bolivia, make sense of educational policy, in particular the concept of “decolonization.” Decolonization in Bolivia promotes dismantling a legacy of colonial rule and rethinking Indigenous and national futures.

Through this pillar concept, contemporary education reform focuses on de-settling dominant approaches to (socially) inclusive education. However, as testaments from historically subjugated voices in the academe suggest, the contradiction and tension implicit in decolonization discourse in policy present a need for deeper analysis at the national level about how to introduce de-colonial thought and theory at the classroom level.

Author

• Martina Arnal, Independent Scholar