Decolonisation, knowledge production, and interests in liberal higher education

Abstract

This essay explores how calls for decolonisation in universities have engaged with ideas about liberalism and liberal education. It maps the historical context of liberal education as embodied in the development of modern European universities and colonial interests in their respective nation-states. It offers comparative perspectives on how ideas of decolonisation in higher education have confronted liberal and nation-state interests at different historical conjunctures in three postcolonial settings: in the establishment of a national university in India during the 1960s; in protests by university students in postapartheid South Africa between 2015 and 2017; and in growing commitments to I..