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Undermining the African agency
MARJORIE MAYO praises a book that raises significant questions challenging the limitations of extreme forms of decolonisation

Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously
by Olufemi Taiwo
Hurst £14.99


DECOLONISATION has become highly topical as an issue, along with the challenges that Black Lives Matter poses to racism more generally.

In so many different contexts students have been demanding the decolonisation of their programmes of study, challenging the continuing legacy of colonial assumptions, especially colonial assumptions about the superiority of Western cultures, devaluing the histories of non-Western cultures in the process. There are so many issues here for the left to consider.

Against decolonisation: Taking African agency seriously offers a controversial contribution to these debates.  

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