introduction to decolonization journals
a leftist publication centered around decolonial ethics and action.
a leftist publication centered around decolonial ethics and action.
Hi! Welcome to decolonization journals! I’m planning to use this publication to share essays and journal entries that explore a bunch of topics related to decolonization, with the goal of expanding your understanding of what it means and could mean as a movement. I’m hoping to keep this all grounded in a style of writing that links personal experience with more abstract theories and philosophies; hopefully this will make it easier to understand how these bigger systemic concepts appear in our daily lives. I think that in the times we are living today, what with the rapid increase in climate disasters, the Palestinian people subjected to american/israeli genocide for 677+ days, ice agents terrorizing entire communities into hiding, and, and, and, and…it is not extreme to note that we desperately need to be able to at least consider how to live outside of the systems of power that have brought about these conditions. To me, this imaginative/creative ability is huge in the work of decolonization, and I would love to help others develop it along my own journey.There is no perfect pre-contact past that we can return to, no one idea/experience that is the “right” solution. What we need then is the ability to craft creative solutions that allow people to return to decolonized ways of living1 in the face of well-established oppressive systems meant to eradicate indigenous people, knowledge, and action. For the sake of our personhood, for the sake of our communities, for the sake of our Earth.
Kaaterskill Falls, 08.10.24
wait, what is decolonization?
Decolonization can be defined many different ways! But at its simplest, the word describes processes of liberating the colonized from the colonizer’s control/will/influence. It is a process of regaining sovereignty2 and autonomy3 which involves returning to indigenous cultural ideas and practices, eschewing those imported by colonists.first, what is colonialism?
Colonialism is the practice of dispossessing4 land, labor, and/or “value” from the indigenous inhabitants of a place for the benefit of the colonizer. It has many different manifestations, including:settler-colonialism, which happens when colonists force indigenous peoples off of their ancestral homelands, for the benefit of living on, farming, and harvesting “natural resources” from said stolen land. in most cases, settler-colonialists intend to occupy the land indefinitely and so organize a new society on the land that systemically excludes and oppresses indigenous peoples.some examples of settler-colonies are: the united states of america, canada, australia, new zealand
exploitation-colonialism (what I might personally call “extractivism”) is not centered on establishing a new population and society in the colony, but on extracting wealth from the colony in the forms of “natural resources” and indigenous or imported labor. a key difference here is that there is not a massive settler population in the country, and the things harvested are generally meant to be exported for trade.some examples of exploitation-colonialism include the british colonization of India, and the belgian colonization of Congo5. in the present we also see many corporations — such as exxonmobil, 3m, and nestle — engaging these tactics without receiving many consequences.
surrogate-colonialism involves the same key principles of settler-colonialism, systemically replacing an indigenous population with a settler one, but instead of the colonial power colonizing directly, it supports another population as settlers.this is most clearly seen in Palestine today. the israeli occupation is only able to continue existing with the backing of two major colonial/imperial nations: the united states and britain. without immense support, zionists lack the resources to carry out their settler-colonial project.
These are some examples of what colonialism can look like, but certainly not all. In any case, decolonization definitely involves the undoing of the processes I’ve just described. Historically, it has taken the form of nations gaining their independence, no longer being regarded as an official colony. decolonization today
Today and always, we are seeing that decolonization also involves ending the influence colonial powers seek to hold over former colonies. For example, France just recently, — in July of this year (2025!!) — finally ended its decades-long military presence in West Africa, withdrawing from its last two bases in Senegal. This is one big step of many in eliminating western influence over African affairs.In settler-colonial projects across Turtle Island6, we can look to initiatives like the Land Back movement. This movement calls for the return of dispossessed lands to the peoples that have historically stewarded them since precolonial times, which is very in line with the regaining of sovereignty and autonomy that is characteristic of decolonization. We can also observe in the Land Back movement a strong call for the end of white supremacist values and the resulting actions that harm indigenous peoples and lands. This concept is key to the climate impacts of decolonization.Native American philosophies of land stewardship do not involve the extraction and exploitation of the land that we see in the western societies which have created the climate crisis. This is expressed very obviously in the consistent environmental justice efforts many native tribes and nations carry out, such as going to court on the behalf of the terribly polluted Onondaga lake, the Dakota access pipeline protests, and—very recently—successfully halting the construction of a concentration camp7 in the florida Everglades.This relationship to land is true of many indigenous peoples across the planet, as we tend to foster a familiar closeness with the land that sustains and cares for us, our ancestors, and our descendants. When you live in connection with the land, it becomes much more obvious that “environmental protection” is an absolute must, not a corporate afterthought.We also see the Palestinian struggle against israeli occupation escalating to horrificextremes at present. To name it, the final Al-Jazeera journalists in Gaza have been assassinated. The idf is, and has been, starving the Gazan people, now using “aid sites” —which are a hungry people’s only chance to receive outside goods—to gun down those that dare to come for food, for sustenance, hope, life. after all that has happened right before our eyes, what will happen when we, outside, cannot see? israel lays bare the genocidal intent that settler-colonialism necessitates — creating a settler colony demands the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people, because their historical, cultural, and personal claims to their homelands pose a fundamental threat to the fraudulent land ownership claims of occupying zionists. these events also lay bare the need to decolonize — those perpetuating this violence see it as a success, a sign of settler-colonialism done right. sickening.Decolonial struggles are raging loudly and silently in places all across the planet. Colonialism and imperialism, largely carried out by western countries, have botched the trajectory of life on this planet for centuries up until this point. Because of this, the process of disentangling our lives from that legacy is all-encompassing and constant. In upcoming posts, I plan to really lean into that “ending of white supremacist tenets” part I mentioned earlier, because I believe that is something that really cuts to the core of how we can begin to apply decolonial practices in our daily lives. so...who am i?
Great question, I'm Taylor! I am a Black american artist, craftsperson, and writer who is currently based between Brooklyn, NY and Amsterdam, NL. I am an avid researcher of Black and Indigenous critical theory now on a journey to apply what I learn in my artistic practice. my pronouns are they/them, yet you will still see me write about Black womanhood at times, because I certainly experience the unique joys and challenges of that identity. Most importantly for this substack, I am someone filled with information and strong opinions about said information. It is hard for me to pinpoint a particular time when I “came to” decolonization as an approach to solving systemic injustices against people and climate. I was thrust into the inherent violence of being a neurodivergent Black girl at birth, and have spent a lot of days since trying to learn, heal, and reorient myself in the world. My consciousness about misogynoir8, ableism9, and homo/transphobia has grown with each year that I’ve lived, both through raw experience and through careful research. My awareness of how global these issues are has been expanding since I witnessed the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson at age 13, since I came to understand the true gravity of climate change through a class at age 15. In short, I have always known about the underhanded cruelty of white supremacist attitudes, because they have always been weaponized against me and those like me.The closest thing to an “aha” moment happened in my first year of architecture school at pratt institute. One fateful day, I was sent a pdf of “Land as Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation” by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (click to read it yourself!). Reading that article genuinely changed my life. There I was, mid-pandemic and having the single most humiliating and oppressive academic experience of my life (which is saying something, I know humiliation and oppression in academia!), reading this article that perfectly described a life-affirming, nuanced way of education that I had never heard of before. It was this radical way of learning that acknowledged children as full people worthy of listening to, that acknowledged plants and animals as instructors alongside human elders, that acknowledged education as a natural gift worth honoring. It was an absolute mind-fuck, the juxtaposition of my position in that neoliberal10institution that truly didn't seem to care whether I lived or died, and this article describing education which acknowledged and honored the fullness of personhood in this magnificent world. My mind exploded with ideas after reading this: if life as Simpson described it existed in the americas both past and present, then it was possible. Reading this unlocked a sort of hope that I did not allow to exist before…what if my traumatizing experiences in education growing up were not just “how things are” or something “unfortunate” that I should accept and move on from, but the results of a system designed to enact violence on myself and other marginalized children? What if other systems exist, like the one Simpson describes, that don’t involve this sort of casual everyday violence, that instead teach children how to be loved, self-actualizing beings? Many other things that I learned that semester turned me towards the path I currently walk…it was such an extreme environment that it allowed me to finally see just how unacceptable the ingrained violence of the status quo11 is. It gave me the determination I needed to begin rejecting that sort of treatment, and to consider what a beautiful, full, loving life could look like for myself and other marginalized people; I had no other choice, it was continue on or don’t at that point. In my pursuit of that ideal, my understandings of decolonization as a concept and a process have grown exponentially. I am now in a place where I consider decolonization to be a way forward that relates to nearly every crisis afflicting our world today, from the evils being executed against the Palestinian people and land, to the strengthened fires and storms ravaging the planet, to the rise of fascism in the west, to the job that seems to be sucking your soul straight out of your body, the late bus, and the laundry piling up. From the micro to the macro, it all has to do with decolonization. Sharewhat should i expect from this publication?
I am planning to publish decolonization journals either every Tuesday or every-other Tuesday, depending on how I find my writing is going. I am new to substack, so please offer me some grace as I figure out how this platform best works for me! This is a topic that I am passionate about in the deepest sense of the word, so I have a lot of ideas for future posts. We will cover things such as:tenets of white supremacy and how to recognize them in your daily lifehow blackness and indigeneity relate and intersect in america todayescaping powerlessness and other lies told by fascismthe importance of connecting with your local community of human and non-human beingsthe need for silliness, fun, and play amidst…the horrorscrafting as a radical practice of embodimentmutual aid and communal self-reliancetrauma work and emotional regulation as core to sociopolitical strugglessilencing the neoliberal in your mind: self worth and productivity expectationshow white guilt impedes acting in solidarity
and a number of other related topics that are constantly buzzing around in my mind. I would also love feedback of other topics that would be helpful in your journey! My goal is to make this publication as accessible as I can, and I also welcome feedback in that realm. In this post I have focused on providing some definitions and introductions to foundational concepts of what I will continue talking about, so that hopefully more people are able to follow my thinking. Let me know if there are words or concepts you don’t understand in any of my posts, and I will work on clarifying them!I also want to say that these posts will also be a learning experience and place of creative exploration for me as much as anyone! I want to hear what you think, and definitely let me know if you see I’ve gotten something wrong. <3Thank you so much for reading this far! I appreciate it more than you could know. Take care and until we meet again,Taylor.Footnotes
ways of living that prioritize peoples’ rights to individual, communal, and environmental interconnection, health, and wellbeing
freedom from external rule or control
the right to self-government (applies to both groups and individuals. we can be autonomous as individual people and as groups/communities/nations of people)
forcing someone to give up their land, property, possessions, +/ security
yet you will still see me write about Black womanhood at times, because I certainly experience the unique joys and challenges of that identity
the complex combination of racism and misogyny that Black women face
discrimination or harassment on the basis of physical or mental (dis)ability
in favor of policies that promote free-market capitalism, deregulation, and privatizing public services (think: “trickle down” economics and pulling oneself up by their bootstraps, “rugged individualism”)
what do I mean by this? the systems of power we live under today (government, corporations, police/military, etc) are allowed to be violent without consequences, because that violence is a feature of the system. for example, police officers murder unarmed citizens and are rarely sent to prison for it. insurance companies can deny or stall your access to life-saving/extending treatment, no questions asked, no legal consequences for them if you die because of lack of treatment. the govt/military can use “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) on prisoners because it serves the intentionally vague goal of “national security.” corporations can poison local waters and destroy air quality, actions linked to poor health outcomes for people, and at most pay a fine/reach a settlement.
these things are as violent — if not more violent — as everyday interpersonal violence, but only our civilian violence goes punished by imprisonment/death/more violence.
