Decolonization and Asian epistemology: reflections on identity, contradictions, and inequality

• In Event: Revisiting "Asia as Method": Toward ontologies and epistemologies of difference

Proposal

Recent calls for the decolonization of the academy demands serious discussions on epistemology and inequality in global knowledge production. Asia's rapidly developing economies and demographic booms also impart rising confidence among Asian scholars and institutions to promote indigenous knowledge. Decolonization represents a broader demand for social justice on a global scale. While these calls for decolonization and epistemic emancipation are invigorating, decolonial scholarship is prone to sterile theorization, historical fixity, and an overt romanticization of the Global South. Using auto-ethnography, I present my experience as an academic of East Asian descent across five different spaces: 1) Northern Europe, 2) Toronto, 3) Southeast Asia, 4) Kazakhstan, and 5) the United Kingdom. I argue that decolonization must recognize epistemology beyond its textual form, theoretical deliberation, and policy discourse. Rather, epistemology as practice (lived experiences) reveals contradictions in decolonization and deep inequalities in indigenous knowledge. I suggest that true epistemic emancipation requires an integrative approach to knowledge that honors a cosmopolitan view of knowledge rather than a reductive or additive view that prioritizes geography and nationality. I also emphasize the primacy of identity and mobility in mediating knowledge production in the context of globalization.

Author

• Jack Lee, University of Edinburgh