Decolonial Knowledge(s)

Session Submission Type: Paper Session (90 minute)

Description

Research in the sociology of empire and colonialism, and scholarship in science and technology studies has drawn attention to the relationship between the production of knowledge, processes of colonization, and colonization’s enduring impact. This relationship has been proven to be enduring and powerful: from tracing the role of colonial experts in gathering information to guide the extractive and oppressive forces of global empires, to the development and testing of technologies of surveillance on colonized communities for their sale in global markets. In an effort to advance theoretical frameworks for analyzing this relationship, this panel will explore ongoing efforts to interrogate and challenge the colonial legacies that shape contemporary knowledge practices, institutions, and technologies. By situating science and technology in historical and contemporary processes of conquest, extraction, and domination, this panel aims to foster space for critical and creative reimaginings of practices of knowledge production, circulation, and valuation.

We invite papers to this open SKAT panel that examine how coloniality continues to structure what is recognized as scientific or authoritative expertise, and how subjugated knowledge and expertise emerge, persist, or are suppressed. In addition to studies that address the relationship between practices of knowledge production and colonization, we are interested in case studies that highlight resistance and innovation–whether through Afro-diasporic epistemologies, crip, feminist and queer thought, or Indigenous ways of knowing–that challenge institutions of domination and propose new ways of relating to the world.
Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Colonial legacies in classification, measurement, and standardization
• Indigenous knowledge practices and technologies in relation to environmental stewardship or health, data and knowledge acquisition, and scientific governance
• Decolonial critiques of global data regimes, AI, and digital infrastructures
Medical and/or public health practices that challenge empire

Our goal is to examine what it means to do sociology of science, technology, and knowledge in a world marked by coloniality, and to imagine more just, equitable, and liberatory epistemic futures.

Sub Unit

• Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section / Decolonial Knowledge(s)

Presider

• Santiago José Molina, Northwestern University

Individual Presentations

• An Indigenous Imagination? Illness and Meaning-Making Among Urban Indians - Kiana Kristine Wilkins, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Beyond the Color Line: Anti-White Japanese Empire and the Making of Minzoku in Manchukuo - Wei Zhou, University of Chicago; Riko Kobayashi, University of Chicago

• Colonial Rulers and Unruly Masses: Global Measurement Regimes and Local Forms of Resistance - Hector Vera, UNAM

• Making faces: Decolonizing “Mongolian Idiocy” - Aryn Martin, York University

• The Case of Black Study in Black Independent Book Spaces - Kyanna Richard, University of California-Irvine

Session Organizers

• Alex Hanna, Distributed AI Research Institute

• Santiago José Molina, Northwestern University

• Claire Laurier Decoteau, University of Illinois-Chicago