Aims, scope & structure

Reading Decoloniality is an inter-institutional platform for advanced study, dialogue and collaboration in decolonial research. Activities include an open-source publication (ISSN 2977-8573), reading group and residencies that produce and disseminate international and interdisciplinary scholarship answerable to communities, struggles, and ecologies.

Structure of activities

Organising members collectively lead research projects, shape quarterly reading group programmes and symposia, and review publications for the journal.

Additionally, we co-author special issues and offer forms of advisory support for projects seeking decolonial guidance. We often partner with Institutes for Advanced Studies.

The strength of our network lies in the rich interdisciplinarity and global knowledge, with conversations anchored in decoloniality as a shared, shifting and context-dependent theoretical basis. This basis evolves in relation to the multiple histories and formations of colonialism present in each research site, community, and interaction.

We have an open membership and nominate positions democratically.

Current activities

There are important connections between our public and globally attended reading groups, publication and residencies. 

Reading group

Reading groups are usually published in three-month cycles and invite a speaker to discuss selected discourses (journal articles, chapters, practices) as an introduction, before opening to a collaborative investigation with readers. Anyone can participate in these reading groups, regardless of institutional affiliation. There is often something to read/view before each reading group.

Publication

Reflective articles for our Journal are then penned by reading group speakers within six weeks from the reading group date and feature the minutes from the discussion as a postscript. Other formats are also celebrated in the Journal but this is the key connector between formats.

Residencies

Members engage Institute of Advanced Studies research residencies that tackle issues of decolonial research design, reciprocal global south-north collaboration, and brokering new important relationships. Residencies are developed over two-year terms and led by a key inquiry.

Leadership & history

Reading Decoloniality was founded by Claire French, and is currently co-directed with Asanda Ngoasheng, Nadeen Dakkak and Teodora Todorova. Our organising members consist of global and interdisciplinary scholars that lead the programming and editorial boards.

Reading Decoloniality evolved out of the Decolonial/Postcolonial Working Group at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), University of Warwick in early 2021. This group was founded by Eloise Betrand, Giulia Champion, Nadeen Dakkak, Remi Dewiere, Will Fysh, Martha Gayoye, Luca Peretti and Doro Wiese. The Journal of Reading Decoloniality continues with an ISSN and institutional support from the University of Warwick.

Reading Decoloniality is independent, inter-institutional, and unbound by institutional logics for decoloniality.