Insurgent Decolonial Theory and the Role of the Intellectual

Abstract

This article explores the various ways the intellectual committed to liberation and decolonization has been represented and how combative and insurgent decolonial modes of theorizing contribute to this radical tradition. First, I provide an overview of decolonial thought to challenge the notion that decolonial theory is a coherent whole without contradictions and tensions. I then offer varying ways anticolonial and decolonial intellectuals have contributed to combative scholarship. I propose an insurgent decolonial theory that makes connections between texts and contexts, between theory and praxis, and between the symbolic and material dimensions of coloniality and decoloniality. Insurgent decoloniality resists modernity/coloniality’s project of death while planting and cultivating life.