Decolonising the University: The Origins and Meaning of a Movement

Abstract

This article responds to the contemporary debates in UK higher education about the need to ‘decolonise the curriculum’, with particular attention to the implications for the discipline of history. The author positions these important debates as one outcome of a transnational movement led by students of colour whose grievances reach into and beyond the classroom. The first part of the article examines the origins of this movement identifying some important antecedents as well as the broader political and socio-economic forces that propelled its rise in 2015. There then follows an examination of the movement's multidimensional critique of the university sector, which includes—but is not limited to—the call to ‘decolonise the curriculum', before considering potential implications for academic workers labouring in the discipline of history.