Unsettling Universality: Decoloniality and Anti-Racism in Human Rights Education

Absztrakt

This paper examines the convergence of decolonial theory and anti-racist praxis within contemporary human rights discourses, focusing particularly on educational contexts and minority rights frameworks. Through critical engagement with recent discourses on decolonising curricula in higher education, this analysis interrogates the scrutiny to which the ostensibly universal edifice of human rights has been subjected, revealing its entrenchment within colonial epistemologies and racial stratifications. The paper also explores how meaningful advancement of minority rights necessitates fundamental epistemic transformation rather than superficial inclusion within existing institutional structures.

Two theoretical developments frame the analysis: an emerging strand of scholarship proposing anti-colonisation as a distinct move beyond decolonisation, and the growing integration of intersectionality with decolonial frameworks. Together, these signal a field grappling seriously with the gap between theoretical ambition and institutional practice. Decolonial approaches carry genuine transformative potential, but that potential is routinely absorbed and neutralised by institutional diversity agendas that adopt decolonial language while leaving colonial power relations intact.

This paper underscores the imperative of synthesising decolonial and anti-racist modalities to foster authentically equitable human rights, particularly within educational spheres that shape subsequent generations’ understanding of justice and human dignity.