Seminar on Postcolonial Studies

From September 2023, Ceped (Centre Population et Développement: Université Paris Cité & IRD) and CERI (Centre de recherches internationales: Sciences Po Paris) will launch the fourth season (2019-2020; 2020-2021, 2021-2022) of the Seminar on Postcolonial Approaches (SAP), the aim of which is to consolidate the space for academic reflection and discussion dedicated since 2019.


This seminar will continue to promote and deepen knowledge of these approaches by familiarising the scientific community with the most recent literature adopting postcolonial approaches, by critically examining the reception of postcolonial approaches in French academia (and beyond), and by examining the professional and scientific conditions in which the researchers involved in these approaches carry out their activities.


The SAP started from the observation that postcolonial approaches (anti-colonial, subaltern studies, postcolonial, decolonial) occupy a minor place in teaching and research in the social sciences in France, whereas they occupy a significant place internationally. There are few research centres devoted to the postcolonial situation or its contemporary manifestations and developments. The SAP is a unique space for reflection, discussion, updating debates and sharing, and will continue in 2023-2024 to welcome doctoral students, researchers and masters students who discuss these scientific approaches, as well as activists who use them outside the academic sphere to understand the causes, effects and changes brought about by postcolonial approaches in both the scientific and social spheres, focusing on three areas:



    • The first, 'Postcolonialism, imperialism and history', aims to situate the place of the colonial legacy. Although the term 'postcolonial' does not refer solely to the post-decolonisation era, it remains closely linked to history through its constant reference to periods marked by various forms of colonisation and the imperial expansion of modern science. The aim of this theme is to explore the links between history and postcolonial approaches, both empirically and theoretically;
   

• The second, 'Postcolonial approaches and the social sciences', aims to consider the place of postcolonial approaches in the renewal of the social sciences. To what extent does the approach they propose, based on a critique of the universalism of the social sciences, make it possible to question their epistemological foundations? What methodological operations and tools do they produce to open up the disciplinary and Eurocentric approach of the social sciences?
   

• Lastly, 'Postcolonial approaches and activism', seeks to shed light on the relationship between scientific activity and activism in postcolonial approaches, in dialogue with those who use them for action. The link between postcolonial approaches and militant activities is used as much to indict these approaches as to praise their situated epistemology.

The growing interest in postcolonial approaches from many doctoral students and researchers working in a postcolonial context and/or interested in work from this context has led us to change the regular format of this seminar for this new season. In addition to the presentations of the scientific literature designed to raise awareness of these approaches, which will now be the subject of doctoral training workshops during the first semester of the academic year, there will be talks in the second semester in the form of conferences giving the floor to researchers discussing the main concepts that have emerged from these approaches in their research work. These will include issues such as the decentralisation of the gaze, epistemic justice, coloniality, the dialogue of knowledge and interculturality.



Contact : sap.seminaire@gmail.com