Paper long abstract:

This contribution discusses ongoing efforts to decolonise a first-year introductory course to the social sciences at a university college in Oslo, Norway. Theoretically, these decolonial efforts are informed by the thinking of Achille Mbembe, while they find practical guidance through a toolbox for decolonising teaching and syllabus issued by the Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH). Thinking and doing decolonisation in higher education classrooms in a Norwegian context concerns Norwegian academic institutions as Eurocentric and Westernized, Denmark-Norway’s partaking in the colonisation of territories in the global South, as well as Norway’s history of colonising the Sami people within their own country. The attempted decolonial efforts presented here commenced last year upon discussions with colleagues based on the question what and how social science students should learn in 21st century Norway. The preliminary changes that were introduced to the course included changing the order of lectures to start (rather than end) with a problematisation of so-called Western knowledge, introducing a lecture on the coloniality of knowledge production (in addition to orientalism, which had been on the syllabus before) as well as literature on Sami philosophy. The aim for this year is to introduce more encompassing changes based on hitherto open questions; one of the most pertinent questions being the choice of an adequate syllabus: If decolonisation means to diversify and decentralise, this does not only imply adding new readings, but also reducing and disrupting the existing social science canon. What should remain on the syllabus and what should not?