Paper Short Abstract:

Building on the relation between the history of anthropological knowledge-production and the historical context of Western imperialism and colonialism, this paper argues for decolonizing ways of knowing in the discipline through the ‘de-worlding’ of epistemic structures of representation by means of recognizing multiple interconnected worlds and countervisualities.

Paper Abstract:

Building on the relation between the history of anthropological knowledge-production and the historical context of Western imperialism and colonialism, this paper argues for decolonizing ways of knowing in the discipline through the ‘de-worlding’ of epistemic structures of representation by means of recognizing multiple interconnected worlds and countervisualities. Underlying epistemic structures that shaped the logic of representation in early anthropological writings indicate how theoretical formations primarily contributed to the ‘worldling’- of lifeworlds, spaces, and knowledge of the people under investigation. Through the narrative reconstruction of distanciated fields and exoticized objects of inquiry, representation engaged in the production of objective and standardized worldviews or dominant visualities, based either on ideas of evolution, or differentiation and Othering. Reading such attempts at worlding or hegemonizing ways of knowing as epistemic injustice, the paper explores the epistemological formations and undercurrents in the discipline that became prominent with the writing culture debate and thereafter, to deliberate on the possibility of decolonization. Projects of decolonization, in the academy, as well as outside, are inherently political. Decolonizing anthropology then remains committed to challenging and transforming the conventional conditions of knowledge production, which, in the name of objectivity, engaged in the development and prominence of generalized, ahistorical perspectives and stereotyped ways of knowing and seeing. Critically reflecting on the politics of knowledge-production in anthropology, I therefore argue for an epistemic decolonization of the discipline through the incorporation of contextualized, ordinary, and peripheralized histories as countervisualities that work towards dismantling colonial worlding(s) and privileged positionalities.