Decolonizing the Syllabus Bibliography

The Sciences in general:

 Decolonising Science Reading List developed by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

 Decolonizing technology: A reading list from Beatrice Martini

 Bang, M. and Marin, A. (2015), Nature–culture constructs in science learning: Human/non-human agency and intentionality. J Res Sci Teach, 52: 530-544. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21204

Abstract: The field of science education has struggled to create robust, meaningful forms of education that effectively engage students from historically non-dominant communities and women. This paper argues that a primary issue underlying this on-going struggle pivots on constructions of nature–culture relations. We take up structuration theory (Giddens, 1984. The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.) and decolonizing methodologies (Smith, 2012. Decolonizing methodologies research and Indigenous peoples (2nd. ed.). London: Zed Books.) to reflect on the structural principles of the settled expectations of nature–culture relations. We suggest that taken together both Giddens' and Smith's respective discussions of time-space relations provide a powerful framing for nature–culture relations. Carefully examining shifts in the temporal and spatial scales during moments of talk and action in out-of-school science activities may help to increase the field's understanding of divergences, convergences, and productive generativity between Western science and Indigenous ways of knowing to create transformative science learning. Drawing on our work in community-based design research and studies of everyday parent–child interactions, we begin to describe emergent structural principles that may desettle normative time-space and nature–culture relations. In addition, we describe specific practices and pedagogical forms that expand views of human and non-human agency, as well as present and possible socio-ecological futures. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 530–544, 2015

Belczewski, A. (2009). Decolonizing Science Education and the Science Teacher: A White Teacher's Perspective. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 9(3), 191-202. 

Abstract: This article recounts my ongoing process of becoming decolonized in my thinking and teaching practice in order to make science education relevant, meaningful, and respectful for First Nations students. Through close collaboration with Mi’kmaq and Maliseet education directors, students, children, parents, and elders I have gained insights into Mi’kmaq/Maliseet ways of being and ways of understanding the natural world. I have developed a deep appreciation for those who invite me to question my epistemologies by sharing ways of knowing the world that is different from my own. Viewing myself through a Mi’kmaq/Maliseet lens has impacted profoundly how I interact with First Nations children in summer camps and students in university classes. 

Sinclair, R. (2020). Exploding Individuals: Engaging Indigenous Logic and Decolonizing Science. Hypatia, 35(1), 58-74. doi:10.1017/hyp.2019.18

Abstract: Despite emerging attention to Indigenous philosophies both within and outside of feminism, Indigenous logics remain relatively underexplored and underappreciated. By amplifying the voices of recent Indigenous philosophies and literatures, I seek to demonstrate that Indigenous logic is a crucial aspect of Indigenous resurgence as well as political and ethical resistance. Indigenous philosophies provide alternatives to the colonial, masculinist tendencies of classical logic in the form of paraconsistent—many-valued—logics. Specifically, when Indigenous logics embrace the possibility of true contradictions, they highlight aspects of the world rejected and ignored by classical logic and inspire a relational, decolonial imaginary. To demonstrate this, I look to biology, from which Indigenous logics are often explicitly excluded, and consider one problem that would benefit from an Indigenous, paraconsistent analysis: that of the biological individual. This article is an effort to expand the arenas in which allied feminists can responsibly take up and deploy these decolonial logics.