Invoking the ‘Power of Protest’ in Decolonising Scottish Religious Education: Utilising an Anticolonial Framework for Radical Action

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Protest and social justice in religion, education, and society across varying national contexts

Proposal

In this paper, I draw on my experience (30 years) teaching Religious Education (RE) in school and teacher education, published research, examination of relevant ‘texts’ (government reports, policies, and the school curriculum/syllabus) and critical reading of extant academic sources to critique the colonial/neo-colonial conceptualisation and formulation of Scottish RE. In Scotland, RE has existed as a part of a colonial continuum in an educational exceptionalism (i.e., different from England) complicated by Presbyterian-Catholic intra-church politics, legislative peculiarity, including the existence of separate RE curriculum for Catholic and non-denominational (historically Presbyterian) schools.

As context, world-wide, decolonisation of the curriculum debate is an issue which is promoted but also dreaded. In countries or communities that suffered the perversity of colonialism and the epistemic violence it unleased, decolonisation is welcomed because it provides the antidote to hegemonic epistemologies and racialised practices that are interlaced with modes of exploitation, exclusion, and disempowerment in education. In some contexts particularly Global North, decolonisation is sometimes quietly resisted because of people’s fear of saying the wrong thing, ignorantly stating that this is not ‘my problem because I did not colonise anybody’ and at times, defending instead of critiquing the rhetoric of epistemological dominance. Why radical (i.e., anticolonised) reform fails in RE is a subject Mark Chater has noted in arguing that “… the politics of epistemology creates curriculum incoherence and protects the interests of selected religious communities who wish to control the way they are known, the economics of producer capture bolsters that power…” (Chater, 2022, 248).

In RE the politics of epistemology is evident in social space of curriculum reform where debates about knowledge-making takes place, resulting in a symbolic struggle for religious identity and revealing whose knowledge remains dominant (and why) in the curriculum. A decolonised curriculum that has undergone the purifying fire of anticoloniality atones for epistemic violence in the curriculum, decentres hegemonic epistemologies and challenges even formerly colonised peoples for (in)action to decolonise their curriculum. In alignment with the 2024 CIES conference theme, the ‘power of protest’ should generate not only collective action for epistemic equity and social justice in Scottish RE, but also, develop anticolonial praxis and strategies that contest coloniality in all its guises.

Examining how Scottish RE can be effectively decolonised, an anticolonial framework provides radical conceptual lens and practical tools in the postcolonial debate. Anticolonial framework remains under-acknowledged in postcolonial theory and yet it is precisely the framework that is needed in moving forward beyond the limitations of the decolonisation debate in lacking radical action for change. As Fanon has argued (Fanon, 1967), violence is necessary (and even unavoidable) to confront colonialism (in its various guises in the colonial-neocolonial continuum) head on because “… being drunk with power, [it] is not capable of thought or reason [and] … relents only when confronted with greater violence …” (Bini citing Fanon, 2014, 37). The prefix ‘anti’ in the concept anticolonisation is important because it denotes “. . . sites of resistance within colonial relations of power …” to resist colonial/colonised relationships” (Shahjahan 2011, 183). What is refreshing about the radicalism in anticolonialism is that it cuts both ways in the colonial-postcolonial continuum in critiquing not only the colonial (historical) but also the neo-colonial conceptualisations of knowledge-making in the curriculum as well. Is also provides intellectual ideas and practical tools in challenging epistemic violence ensuring that interventions put in place in dealing with hegemonic epistemologies are better suited to local situations and indigenised conditions in which knowledge is produced and shared.

Particularly in Scottish RE, a school subject embroiled in the colonial (historical) and neocolonial (postcolonial) project, the need to challenge hegemonic epistemologies through an anticolonial framework cannot be greater. I argue that despite glimpses of decoloniality in Scottish RE—seen through government reports like the 1972 Miller Report and major reforms in 1994 and 2009—the curriculum remains in a neocolonial formulation, and as such needing radical transformation. This is because, inter alia, Scottish RE adopts a neo-confessional approach in which one religion (i.e., Christianity) is recognised as primus inter pares in RE. It is this context that prompts critical questions regarding Scottish RE and why an anticolonial framework is necessary in decolonising its curriculum:

• Why decolonise Scottish RE? What are the push factors for this imperative in the postcolonial environment?
• How can an ‘envisioned’ decolonised Scottish RE be conceptualised within an anticolonial framework?
• What must be done to actualise an ‘envisioned’ anticolonised Scottish RE?

Reflecting on these questions, the adoption of a neo-confessional approach makes Scottish RE a subject that still serves colonial/neo-colonial interests in perpetuating epistemological dominance of normative religions, including Christianity in the politics of knowledge-making in RE. The absence of anti-racist teaching and indigenous religious knowledges of people from the Global South for a country historically implicated in the colonial project, including slavery is a major concern. After all, religion and education were at the epicentre of Scottish imperialism as well. Scotland has within its communities, non-indigenous populations from formerly colonised and enslaved parts of the world, and as such the need to utilise anticolonial strategies to dislodge the assumed sense of homogeneity in curriculum-making in RE. Despite claims of inclusivity, Scottish RE must recentre controversial debates around genders and sexualities, including LGBTQ1+ to redress the “longstanding exclusion and discrimination” of marginalised narratives (Coll, 2021, 25, 30ff).

Decolonising Scottish RE is a distinct possibility because already there are promising signs of decoloniality. Within the current curriculum (e.g., Curriculum for Excellence) RE has attempted to ‘de-other’ the content allowing different religions (and none, e.g., paganism) to be included for study. Through an anticolonial framework these decolonial movements must be encouraged, supported, and scaled up within an anticolonial framework if Scottish RE is to anticolonise beyond the limits of mere decolonisation ensuring that it is helps atone for the epistemic violence of the past, is inclusive of different religious and non-religious voices and, finally it is epistemologically equitable in invoking the power of protest within broader debates calling for the decolonisation of education elsewhere.

Author

• Yonah Hisbon Matemba, University of the West of Scotland