Decolonial, Debrahmanical, De-imperial: Introducing the D3 Research Network
Thinking critically, phenomenologically, and ‘worldly’; stemmed in anti-caste, anti-hierarchial, anti-colonial epistemology.
1. Our Rationale and Vision: Beyond Epistemic Enclosures and Dominant Hierarchies
Emerging from a self-reflexive reading of contemporary academe, this network recognises that much scholarship—including work that styles itself critical—continues to orbit colonial, brahmanical/hierarchical, and imperial logics. Citation practices, reward economies, and disciplinary canons quietly stabilise these inheritances, often relegating epistemologies forged in struggle across the Global South and other marginal spaces to the periphery. Additionally, fugitive, abolitionist, insurgent, and otherwise radical epistemologies are often co-opted, hollowed out, rendered impotent, and then instrumentalised by a variety of actors (individuals and institutions alike) to perform a vacant facade of criticality or progressiveness—all while systematically dismantling indigenous knowledge systems. This keeps intact existing structures of power and further marginalises scholars, particularly those who inhabit the fringes of academia.
Rather than simply indicating this terrain, we seek to complicate its contours: to question the authority of ‘universal’ categories while tracing the sedimented histories that make them appear self-evident. Our ambition, informed by Mignolo’s (2011) call for ‘epistemic disobedience’ and Connell’s (2007) provincialisation of the metropole, is to create breathing room for multiple lifeworlds and knowledge traditions to converse on equal terms and thereby catalyse transformative inquiry.
Aligned with decolonial demands for delinking, the network foregrounds layered genealogies of thought and practice, working deliberately to loosen the grip of hierarchies that structure scholarly labour. We imagine a pluriversal commons grounded in equity, mutual accountability, and care—a space where the task is neither token inclusion nor romantic celebration, but a sustained re-engineering of research horizons so that scholarship speaks with, rather than for, communities historically pushed to the edges of knowledge production.
2. Why This Network—and Why Now: Confronting Interlocking Crises
The urgency for establishing such a collaborative space is profoundly sharpened by the current conjuncture of converging global crises. Climate catastrophe, exacerbated by extractivist colonial-capitalist paradigms, intertwines with pandemic precarity, neo-authoritarian governance structures, and the insidious expansion of data-driven colonialism. These interlocking crises intensify material dispossession while simultaneously shrinking avenues for genuinely democratic deliberation and epistemic plurality. As Sara Ahmed (2017) powerfully reminds us, academic and societal institutions are not neutral grounds but are built from "bricks" of sedimented, often violent, histories. Confronting these entrenched structures necessitates the affective labour of the "feminist killjoy" who courageously refuses to smooth over the pervasive effects of structural violence. Similarly, Audre Lorde (1984) compellingly insists that anger, when carefully analysed and grounded in love for justice, can be transmuted into a potent tool for radical transformation rather than mere destruction. In this spirit, the network strategically collectivises dissent, deliberately creating vital room for situated epistemologies to theorise, critique, and actively resist systemic violence as it manifests at planetary scale (Mignolo 2011; Mbembe 2017).
Within the contemporary university, managerial austerity regimes—driven by neoliberal logic—systematically privilege quantifiable outputs and competitive, individualised grant races. This subtly but profoundly marginalises the kind of slow, dialogic, and community-anchored scholarship that is essential for decolonial work. Nancy Naples (2003) pertinently cautions that research methodologies are never neutral; indeed, activist scholarship must consciously tether inquiry to emancipatory projects and remain rigorously accountable to the very movements and communities it studies. Simultaneously, a pervasive "culture-war" backlash frequently misrepresents decolonisation as a form of censorship or intellectual closure, thereby muting vital critiques that are, in fact, essential to developing careful, considered argumentation and fostering epistemic justice. By pooling critical labour and resources, this network offers a crucial shared infrastructure—including alternative archives, horizontal mentorship models, and open-access publication venues—that not only safeguards intellectual autonomy but also actively advances collective, interdisciplinary responses to interconnected global challenges such as environmental justice, racial capitalism, and the enduring structures of caste patriarchy (Connell 2007; Ndlovu‑Gatsheni 2018).
3. Foundational Principles: Embracing Epistemic Pluralism and Reflexivity
The network anchors itself in epistemic justice, demanding vigilant interrogation of the criteria through which knowledge gains legitimacy inside global institutions (Santos 2014). Scrutiny extends to methodologies, peer review, and archival gatekeeping, all of which often sustain exclusionary hierarchies. By exposing these mechanisms, participants chip away at the presumption that forms of rationality or empiricism guarantee truth, opening space for diverse ontologies rooted in local histories, spiritual traditions, and embodied experience. The network also counters the pillars upon which mainstream institutional knowledge is built and upheld, namely, objectivity. As Lorraine Code (1993) highlights, “...the ideals of the autonomous reasoner—the dislocated, disinterested observer—and the epistemologies they inform are the artefacts of a small, privileged group of educated, usually prosperous, white men.” The network is, in contrast, founded on the embodied, lived experience of scholarship, producing analysis contextual and relevant to those systemically excluded from the academe. Subjectivity can be a powerful lens, offering universal learnings. The network aims to challenge further such pillars, including but not limited to rigour, validity, and truth.
In this context, radical inclusivity transcends demographic metrics, welcoming methodological plurality and ontological humility. Participatory, collaborative, and ethically attentive designs become essential, granting research communities decisive voice in framing questions, interpreting findings, and owning results (Smith 1999). Equally crucial is reflexive vigilance: members continually assess their positionality and the network’s internal dynamics, ensuring efforts avoid reproducing subtle hierarchies. Sustained reflexivity secures alignment between principles and practice, cultivating an environment where critique and care remain inseparable.
4. Research Thematic Areas: Unsettling Dominant Narratives and Reclaiming Agency
Re-examining history through subaltern lenses critically dismantles prevailing nationalist, elite, and Orientalist master-narratives, strategically decentring dominant perspectives to foreground the experiences and intellectual contributions of indigenous peoples, working classes, queer communities, and marginalised castes. This revisionist historiography, as exemplified by the foundational work of Guha and Spivak (1988), illuminates alternative temporalities and political imaginaries, thereby challenging the purportedly linear and universalising tales of progress often inscribed by colonial and hegemonic discourses. Contemporary discourse additionally highlights the urgent need to untangle the threads of internal power dynamics, beyond the North-South or “West and the Rest” binaries.
Critiques of development paradigms rigorously interrogate metrics of growth intrinsically embedded within colonial-capitalist logics, which historically privilege resource extraction over collective well-being. As Dia Da Costa (2007) intricately demonstrates through her ethnography of participatory politics in India, grassroots mobilisation critically reveals the inherent tension where progressive movements can both challenge and inadvertently reinforce neoliberal agendas, thus underscoring the perpetual need for vigilance and contextual specificity in decolonial development praxis.
Intersectional study of social hierarchies moves beyond essentialist categories to meticulously trace how systems of oppression such as caste, race, class, gender, and sexuality interweave within daily life, particularly within postcolonial contexts. Drawing from frameworks such as Patricia Hill Collins' (1990) matrix of domination, this approach foregrounds lived testimonies that reveal complex negotiations of privilege and oppression across multiple terrains, actively challenging universal scripts of victimhood. Through attentive ethnography and discourse analysis, the network seeks to amplify diverse strategies of resistance devised by communities who unequivocally refuse prescribed roles, offering robust methodological templates for research committed to structural change alongside profound epistemic integrity.
5. Network Activities and Outputs: Cultivating a Counter-Hegemonic Scholarly Commons
Collaborative research projects serve as the network’s heartbeat, intentionally bridging disciplinary silos to generate integrated insights across humanities, social sciences, and environmental studies. Teams co-design inquiries with community partners, ensuring shared ownership of questions, data, and interpretation. Such praxis yields scholarship that challenges enclosure of expertise within university walls, while elevating experiential knowledge that emerges from activism, artistry, and quotidian survival across interconnected terrains.
Workshops and webinars provide iterative spaces for theoretical debate and skill development. Sessions cover decolonial methodology, participatory ethics, and critical data analysis, enabling members to refine tools essential for emancipatory research. These gatherings accompany a curated newsletter disseminating cutting-edge work, opportunities, and global events, sustaining intellectual momentum across time zones. Importantly, early-career researchers participate as equal interlocutors, receiving constructive critique devoid of gatekeeping.
Open-access publishing, edited volumes, and monographs constitute another pillar, challenging prohibitive paywalls that restrict knowledge circulation. Linguistic diversity is championed, resisting epistemic monolingualism. Complementary mentorship programmes pair senior scholars with emerging voices from under-represented backgrounds, providing sustained guidance while cultivating reciprocal learning grounded in humility and solidarity.
6. Wider Resources and Fundamental Conceptual Works: Building an Interrogative Intellectual Lineage
Decolonial theory exposes coloniality of power, knowledge, and being (Quijano 2000; Mignolo 2011). Raewyn Connell’s Southern Theory (2007) further provincialises Euro-Atlantic epistemes, insisting that sociological canons be rewritten from the South. Aníbal Quijano foregrounds enduring racial hierarchies, while Nelson Maldonado-Torres demands ethical de-linking from colonial patterns (Maldonado-Torres 2007). At the same time, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (2022) critically interrogates the oversimplification and haphazard or generalised application of decolonisation as a framework.
Debrahmanical thought draws critically upon Ambedkar’s foundational work on caste abolitionism (1936), which relentlessly exposed the inherent violence and epistemic subjugation of the caste system as a distinct and global form of social hierarchy. Gail Omvedt (1980; 1994; 2008) grounds Ambedkarite ways of knowing in living social movements. This is further enriched by Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectionality and Patricia Hill Collins’ matrix of domination (1990), enabling a multifaceted analysis of interlocking oppressions. Scholars such as Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018) and Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí (1997) expand this agenda within African contexts, challenging gender, race, and epistemic norms. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) advances methodological decolonisation, while Achille Mbembe (2017) interrogates postcolonial formations of race and humanity. Crucially, S. Rege’s (2006) work on narrating Dalit women's testimonios provides indispensable insights into the specific intersectional experiences of caste and gender, furthering the network's commitment to understanding situated struggles and debrahmanising knowledge production.
Dia Da Costa’s analyses of development politics and participatory democracy (Da Costa 2007) exemplify praxis-oriented scholarship that interrogates global neoliberal regimes. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s insistence on linguistic restitution (Thiong’o 1986) likewise enriches our agenda, emphasising cultural sovereignty as central to epistemic freedom.
De-imperial frameworks remain anchored in Said’s critique of Orientalism (Said 1978) and Gayatri Spivak’s interrogation of subaltern representation (Spivak 1988). World-systems analysis (Wallerstein 2004) situates contemporary inequalities within enduring global divisions, underscoring why decolonial, debrahmanical, and de-imperial struggles are inseparable.
7. Practical Steps for the Network: From Conception to Impact
Map existing scholars and initiatives: This involves a plural and collective inventory of individual academics, research centres, and community-based organisations globally, identifying those already engaged in critical decolonial, debrahmanical, and de-imperial work. This comprehensive mapping will serve to identify potential collaborators, highlight areas of synergy, and crucially, prevent duplication of effort, thereby fostering a truly interconnected and effective global network.
Organise a foundational workshop/colloquium: This initial convening should strategically bring together a diverse array of stakeholders, including scholars, activists, and community leaders from various geographical and cultural contexts. The primary objective is to collectively define the network's terms of engagement, establish robust ethical guidelines, and identify specific, collaboratively determined research priorities. This inclusive approach ensures that the network's agenda is genuinely co-produced and reflective of multiple global perspectives, rather than being imposed from any single, dominant vantage point.
Develop a dynamic digital platform: More than merely a static website, this platform is envisioned as a vibrant digital commons—a collaborative online space for sharing ongoing research, hosting open-access publications, facilitating virtual seminars and skill-sharing sessions, and fostering robust online discussions across geographical and disciplinary boundaries. It could also host a curated database of decolonial resources and a comprehensive directory of global network members, enhancing connectivity and resource accessibility.
Seek diverse and ethical funding sources: A proactive approach will be taken to pursue grants from progressive foundations, non-governmental organisations, and academic institutions that explicitly support critical, decolonial scholarship and social justice initiatives globally. Crucially, a rigorous process will be implemented to scrutinise all potential funding sources, ensuring that they fully align with the network's core principles and do not, inadvertently or otherwise, perpetuate imperial, neo-colonial, or brahmanical agendas. This unwavering commitment to ethical funding is paramount for maintaining the network's intellectual integrity, autonomy, and credibility.
By elaborating these aspects with a nuanced and critical lens, the Decolonial, Debrahmanical, De-imperial Research Network can position itself as a formidable force in transforming academic discourse and contributing meaningfully to global social justice struggles.
Get involved. Subscribe below. Write to us at d3researchnetwork@gmail.com.