The University, Abolition, and Decolonial Theory and Praxis

Event Description

On March 13, 2023, the American Cultures Center and the Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley hosted this discussion focusing on the University as a site of contestation and contradiction. Starting from its settler colonial origins and logics, the speakers engage what it means to participate in decolonial and abolitionist work at the site of the university. What are its repressive logics and histories? How might we find cracks in its structure to organize?

The event was part of the Staff as Students of Social Justice (SSSJ) Program's public discussion series, ‘Aspirations of Material Anti-Racism: What’s Next?.’ The SSSJ Program supports the growth of a staff-student community engaging in antiracist pedagogies through enrollment in specially designed weekly discussion seminars. The series continues to support this unique community of learning among UC Berkeley staff by centering a set of conversations between UC Berkeley faculty and affiliated contemporaries of their work beyond UC Berkeley.

Panelists

In the face of these conditions one can only sneak into the university and steal what one can...this is the path of the subversive intellectual in the modern university.

Fred Moten and Stefano Harney

Due Time: Meditations on Abolition at the Site of the University

This article, written by David Maldonado and Erica Meiners, critically investigates the violence of inclusion at this political moment within the university. Building from a long genealogy of scholarship and organizing that maps the co-constitutiveness of the university with our prison-industrial complex, this essay makes visible emergent lines and arrangements of power and resistance that inhibit and build abolition. Erica and David reference this article that they co-wrote when discussing how criminalization and carcerality are built into the university, especially when it comes to formerly incarcerated students. The article also discusses their personal histories and relationships with the university, which they share at the beginning of this event. (17:39, 1:09:36)

Decolonization is not a metaphor

This article, by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, critiques the adoption of decolonial discourse by educational scholarship that transforms decolonization into a metaphor rather than a move to bring about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life. Tuck and Yang argue that the metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions, or “settler moves to innocence”, that problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity. Phenocia cites to this text in discussing how shifting from an extractive paradigm of decolonizing as a “taking-away” process and toward indigenizing practices can serve as a powerful method in organizing within colonial institutions, such as universities. (25:30, 30:03)

The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study

Fred Moten and Stefano Harney's series of essays draw on the theory and practice of the Black radical tradition as it supports, inspires, and extends contemporary social and political thought and aesthetic critique. These essays invite readers to the self-organized ensembles of social life that are launched daily amid the general antagonism of the undercommons. David cites to this publication in discussing how the university seeks to create a productive subject, and advocates for using abolition not to simply tear down the system but to intentionally build a new world. (46:36, 1:46:53)

Freedom Archives

The Freedom Archives is a non-profit educational archive located in Berkeley dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of historical audio, video and print materials documenting progressive movements and culture from the 1960s to the 1990s. Offering a youth development program focused on engagement with these historical materials and providing media production training, they also produce original documentaries and educational resources for use by schools and organizations as tools for community building and social justice work. Erica cites the Freedom Archives as a key resource where people can learn about the histories of social movements within their local areas. She emphasizes paying attention to histories of collective struggles within a particular area to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the efforts involved in resisting carceral institutions, such as universities. (1:32:44)

How should we understand decolonization within the context of the university?

(Starting at 20:27) There is an important distinction between decolonization and decolonial work within the university. The hierarchy of knowledge produced by universities perpetuates colonial structures, similar to how the construct of a museum is based on colonial theft. It might not be possible to completely "decolonize" a university. However we can ask what concrete actions we can take to to indigenize these colonial institutions, such as through returning resources. Problematizing the word “decolonize” and considering the value of an indigenizing process is key. – Phenocia
(Starting at 26:38) We should remain aware and critical of how the university as an entity has and continues to naturalize colonialism, and failed to acknowledge the harm it has created, especially in the surrounding community. Understanding decolonization as the redistribution, relocation, and strategic deployment of resources challenges how the university perpetuates harm. However, given the university’s history, we should also question whether or not it is actually possible to build the project of the decolonial university. – Erica
(Starting at 28:43) We should be incredibly cautious to avoid using decolonization as a metaphor. Settler colonialism seeks to create a productive individual, and the university conditions people for racial capitalism. Scholar Fred Moten’s analysis of the difference between Western and Indigenous notions of objects and knowledge reveals how colonial ways of thinking are deeply entrenched in a university’s structure. Therefore, universities should stop using vague language and metaphors and instead focus on creating material change, such as changes that promote material anti-racism. – David

What does abolition work look like in the context of the university?

(Starting at 32:14) We must remain aware of how universities have started institutionalizing words like “abolition”—and depoliticized them in the process. The recent “Cops Off Campus” campaigns, graduate student workers’ strikes, and undocumented student mutual aid are examples of proto-abolitionist organizing on university campuses. (Starting at 53:59) We should also be conscious of the increasing trends restricting enrollment and increasing tuition at public universities as important facets of access in engaging in abolitionist organizing. – Erica
(Starting at 42:56) Teaching in prison and redistributing resources are examples of abolitionist moves at the university. However, much of the abolitionist work that people at universities engage in either ends up being co-opted or used to devalue people, such as formerly incarcerated students or service workers. Framing these efforts as “proto-abolitionist” can help us remain aware of the fact that we can take abolitionist steps within the context of the university, but often they’re not without contradiction and dilemma. – David
(Starting at 47:43) Critically consider the role that policy-building plays in abolitionist efforts by asking important questions of who isn’t included in policy, and how, and why they were excluded. We need to question what innovation transforms an institution, instead of conforming to it, since the university is built to co-opt and promote a certain type of knowledge. – Phoenicia

How can we work through the contradictions of engaging with decolonial and abolition work at the university?

(Starting at 42:56) University-based abolition work must address the contradiction of relative innocence. Relative innocence is the recruitment of people (e.g., graduate students) to recuperate value by devaluing an already devalued “other” in the group (e.g., service workers). (Starting at 1:25:33) David acknowledges campus-based abolition efforts like “Cops off Campus” while also drawing attention to the pervasive issues of police brutality that he witnessed while growing up in West Berkeley to advocate for the importance of engaging with these contradictions. Most importantly, we should ensure that we are extending abolitionist efforts beyond the university and into the community. – David
(Starting at 1:29:19) Recognizing contradictions is a skill that has to be learned. History can teach us a lot about dealing with contradictions. For example, throughout history, federal Native American policy has consistently been reshaped and subverted. Phenocia cites The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King as an example text that details the contradictions that have occurred throughout the history of federal Native American policy, showing how there have always been patterns of communities resisting and subverting institutional control. – Phenocia
(Starting at 1:32:44) Social movement history can help us critically understand how to work through the contradictions of abolition work. We should challenge the idea that abolition work happens arbitrarily or by chance, rather than acknowledging that disposession and inequality are embedded into the university’s very structure. For this reason, it becomes crucial to study histories of collective struggle and devote resources to places like the Freedom Archives, especially considering the university’s immense wealth. – Erica

The University, Abolition, and Decolonial Theory and Praxis

Topics