Decolonise higher education now : Untangling the concepts of decolonisation and decoloniality for management scholars

Abstract

There is a strong sense within higher education, particularly in formerly colonised regions, that the cries to ‘decolonise’ higher education should be taken seriously across all disciplines. In this article, I recount my experience as a management scholar struggling to grasp the core concepts of the decoloniality discourse as I responded to this call. The outcome of these struggles was a conceptual framework, which I present here. This framework served two purposes for me. Firstly, it highlighted aspects of the colonial project that still persist in every facet of life today. Secondly, it provided a foundation for clarifying the central ideas of ‘decolonisation’ and ‘decoloniality’. My aim in sharing my struggles, my framework, and these clarifications in this article is so that others might find it somewhat easier to attain a degree of conceptual understanding than I did.