Decoloniz(s)ing Knowledge Through Performance and Technology: A Collaborative Research Approach
Shared journey
In his work The Ignorant Schoolmaster, philosopher Jacques Rancière suggests an alternative to the traditional teacher-student hierarchy. He proposes a dialogical relationship where both teacher and student embark on a shared journey of discovery—neither knowing in advance what the outcome will be. Inspired by this idea , we aim to explore what it means to “decolonise knowledge” as a dynamic, context-specific, and evolving practice in both research and teaching. Scholar Walter Mignolo argues that decolonising knowledge involves recognizing the geopolitical roots of knowledge—where it comes from and whose perspectives it reflects—while also restoring ways of knowing that have been silenced or erased by dominant Western traditions. For us this means questioning the assumption that Western ways of thinking—whether religious, scientific, or philosophical—are universal, and instead embracing the rich diversity of global knowledge systems.
Decoloniz(s)e
buzz word?
In many academic spaces—especially in the Global North—“decolonising” has become something of a buzzword. While the term is often used to signal an effort to recognize inequalities in how knowledge is produced and shared, the deeper work of decolonising as an ongoing and critical practice often remains overlooked. There's a risk that the term becomes symbolic rather than transformative. As Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo reminds us, we need to decolonize our minds.
Praxis
active labor
Drawing on the idea of the "ignorant schoolmaster," this project seeks to take a more active approach: to explore decolonisation as both a pedagogical and research practice. Our focus is on Theatre and Performance Studies, a field uniquely positioned to investigate these issues through its combination of artistic practice, cultural critique, and social engagement. Performance Studies doesn’t only look at the arts—it also examines everyday actions and cultural events as if they were performances, revealing how meaning is made, shared, and challenged in public life.
Blending
creativity
This field has also led the way in blending traditional academic inquiry with creative practice and emerging technologies. Such approaches allow us to access and share knowledge in new, embodied, and inclusive ways. At the University of Warwick and the University of Toronto, our departments have been at the forefront of these developments. Successful collaborations with non-Western collaborators (Warwick, U of T) and Indigenous collaborators (U of T) speak to that and we will invite the expertise and advise of such collaborators but will show respect and be mindful not to burden them with the labor of decolonizing that we have to do ouselves. Together, we are well placed to explore decolonising knowledge through a combination of practice-based research and digital innovation.
Two ways
practice as research artistic intelligence A/I
ONE
Performing and Embodying Theory: At Warwick, Theatre and Performance researchers have developed the method of practice-as-research (PaR), using creative work as a way to generate and interpret knowledge—especially knowledge that is rooted in the body, culture, and lived experience. Through this lens, "performing theory" becomes a way to challenge existing ideas not just through words, but through movement, gesture, story, and spatial mapping.
This approach allows us to ask: How can we use performance to think critically and politically? What forms of understanding emerge when we move beyond written or spoken theory? What does it mean to decolonise knowledge through embodied, creative practice? What must we unlearn—and what might we learn anew—through this process?
Using tools such as devising, installation, and creative writing, we aim to expand not just the content of decolonising academic inquiry, but also the methods we use to pursue it.
TWO
​Drawing on the research of the former Toronto-based Digital Dramaturgy Labs (2012-2025) we will employ digital dramaturgy as experimental performance, decolonizing and playful methods of artistic intelligence (A/I) to explore the intersections of critical discourse, creative practice, and AI. A major inspiration will be the study of Indigenous, decolonial and anti-racist approaches to the ethics and design of AI technologies. We are inspired by insights of the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Working Group. (2021), ideas such as “Making Kin with Machines” (Lewis 2018) and works by Indigenous women like Skawennati and Suzanne Kite. Specifically, we are including analogue and digital forms of expression inspired by decolonial methods of learning as suggested by the African Leadership University in Mauritius. These methods - akin to Brecht's radical experimental learning plays - insist on listening, open-source access to research, embodied and transmedia forms of expression, collaboration, active producers of learning instead of passive consumers, and “ethics above all” considerations each step of the way.