Decolonising our thinking

Professor Mignolo will be in conversation with notable scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou) a professor of Indigenous education at the University of Waikato. Professor Smith is a leading authority on Indigenous education and health, and her book Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples has been an international bestseller since its publication in 1998.

This is a unique chance to hear the Argentinian thinker and Waikato-based professor in conversation, discussing what the term 'decoloniality' means, and how an analysis of Indigenous knowledge has broken away from a Western model of thinking.

The event will be chaired by Gabriela Salgado, the artistic director of Pakuranga art gallery Te Tuhi.

When: Tuesday 6 August, 2019 at 5.30pm
Where: Old Government House, Lecture theatre G36, 24 Princes Street, Auckland

This lecture is supported by Te Tuhi, the University of Auckland Hood Fellowship and Art History in the School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts.

Is 'Latin America' part of 'the West'? Why ask this question and what do these terms mean for understanding the world today? In this lecture Professor Mignolo will ask what role the Americas played in forming the colonial matrix of power, introduced by Spain and Portugal in the 16th century.

He will also look at the role the name 'Latin America' later played the 19th century when the nation states were created. He will discuss recent debates over the continuing legacy of 'coloniality'and the importance of 'decolonial' thinking for understanding what he and other theorists have called the "modern/colonial world system".

When: Monday 12 August, 2019 at 5.30pm
Where: Old Government House, Lecture Theatre G36, 24 Princes Street, Auckland

This lecture is supported by the University of Auckland Hood Fellowship and the New Zealand Centre for Latin American Studies (NZCLAS) in the School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts.

Professor Mignolo's many books include: The Darker Side of Western Modernity (2011), The Idea of Latin America (2005) and most recently On Decoloniality (2018). Taken together they encapsulate complex and innovative ways of thinking about history, visual culture and the dynamics of globalisation and geopolitics.

He is the William H. Wannamaker Professor and Director of the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University, North Carolina. He has also been an associated researcher at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, since 2002 and an honorary research associate at the Center for Indian Studies in South Africa, at Wits University in Johannesburg.