Decolonising Disciplines; a conversation

[[{"fid":"1797","view_mode":"non_responsive","fields":{"format":"non_responsive","alignment":"right","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Eleanor Robson","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"non_responsive","alignment":"right","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Eleanor Robson","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"200","width":"200","class":"media-element file-non-responsive media-wysiwyg-align-right"}}]]Professor Eleanor Robson is a historian of ancient and modern Iraq and the Head of the History Department. She also runs the Nahrein Network, which aims to put Iraqi researchers and heritage professionals at the heart of the production of knowledge about the country’s past, after decades of conflict, isolation and neglect. 

This year she has been teaching an undergraduate module on the history of ancient Babylon, while grappling with the question of how to decolonise the teaching of a subject that has systemically excluded and marginalised local expertise since its inception.

[[{"fid":"1801","view_mode":"non_responsive","fields":{"format":"non_responsive","alignment":"right","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Ralph","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"non_responsive","alignment":"right","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Ralph","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"200","width":"200","class":"media-element file-non-responsive media-wysiwyg-align-right"}}]]Dr Ralph Wilde is a member of the Faculty of Laws.  He works in the field of international law, and his research and teaching has focused on imperialism, colonialism/post-colonialism/anti-colonialism, human rights, war, international organizations, as general subjects, and in particular contexts and situations. Two years ago he created a new course on the law Master’s programme, ‘decolonizing law’, which is the first course dedicated to this subject in a law school in the English-speaking world.

Dr Ludovic Coupaye is a member of the Department of Anthropology. He has done fieldwork in Madagascar, Papua New Guinea Madagascar and France and his current research is on technology and technodiversity in relation to politics and the environment. He convened the first course on Decolonising Anthropology and is his co-editing, with Karen Schucan-Bird, a special issue of the London Review of Education on Decolonising the curriculum.