International Seminar

Indigenous Knowledge System and Decolonial Turn: Global South in Focus

16 & 17 October 2025

Venue: Bodoland University, Kokrajhar

A Special Issue will be published in Bandung: Journal of the Global South (De Gruyter Brill)

Organiser: The Department of English, and Department of History, Bodoland University in Collaboration with Birangana Sati Sadhani Rajyik Vishwavidyalaya, Bhattadev University iso rganising an international seminar on the theme “Indigenous Knowledge System and Decolonial Turn: Global South in Focus.” Our aim is to create an academic repository of suchk nowledge systems through serious academic deliberation; and on a prescriptive note, it canb e a helpful tool for disseminating information on sustainable lifeways at a time when the world is grappling with climate change challenges. We believe indigenous cosmologies are more earth-centric and may be the key to some of the crisis created by western individualism, modernity, and consumerist behaviour.

Concept note:

The perpetuation of global capitalism, euphemistically termed globalization, in contemporary times is indicative of global coloniality. The end of colonization does not necessarily guarantee the end of coloniality. As Nelson Maldonado-Torres explains, coloniality “refers to longstanding patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism, but that define culture, labour, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations” (243). Although the newly formed nations decolonized their countries of white settlers, they “failed in offering wellbeing to the majority” (Mignolo 14), as governance fell into the hands of local elites and the colonial matrix of power continued to persist in mutated forms. From educational models to economic planning, and from ideas of development and wellbeing to notions of what is modern and scientific - all came to be determined by rubrics of Western-centric universals.

Therefore, colonial prejudices continue to form a significant part of our subjective selves even today. The open-endedness of capitalism, class and caste relations, gender binaries, and racialized anthropology have become universal frameworks for determining social relations. In order to dismantle this colonial matrix of power that perpetuates inequality, domination, subordination, and unequal land rights, it is essential to take a decolonial turn and look into indigenous knowledge systems for local solutions. In challenging the coloniality of Being and a Western-centric world, the damné (see Frantz Fanon), therefore, must reclaim the indispensability of their existence as equal producers of knowledge, countering centuries of what Robin Dunford terms “colonial epistemicide.” All forms of decolonial cosmopolitanism, then, should begin not only by interrogating the existing colonial matrix of power and Being, but also by obliterating global coloniality and global capitalism. This would enable indigenous and native communities to create a pluriverse in which diverse indigenous cosmologies can coexist without privileging one over another.

This seminar aims to open up a space for decolonial thinking and indigenous knowledge systems that will contribute to the growth and sustenance of a pluriversality. We invite contributions on the following themes (but not limited to):

1. Indigenous knowledge system and climate change

2. Indigenous knowledge system and decoloniality

3. Indigenous knowledge system and Modernity

4. Indigenous knowledge system and Education

5. Indigenous knowledge system and customary law

6. Indigenous knowledge system and the idea of Dharma and religion

7. Indigenous knowledge system and culture

8. Indigenous knowledge system and food

9. Indigenous knowledge system and dress

10. Indigenous knowledge system and family values

11. Indigenous knowledge system and ethics

12. Indigenous knowledge system and land rights

13. Indigenous knowledge system and Sustainable Development Goals

14. Indigenous knowledge system and border thinking

15. Indigenous knowledge system and pluriversality

16. Indigenous knowledge system and film

17. Indigenous knowledge system and performative art

18. Indigenous knowledge system and gender relations

19. Indigenous knowledge system and cosmology

20. Indigenous knowledge system and governance

21. Indigenous knowledge system and happiness and well-being

22. Indigenous knowledge system and recovery

23. Indigenous knowledge system, literature, folktales, and epics.

Submission guidelines: Structured Abstract (500 words) along with author bio note shouldb e emailed to buengseminar@gmail.com

Registration Fee:

Research Scholars: Rs 1200 only

Faculty members and others: Rs 3000

Foreign Participants: $50

Note: Registration link and details will be communicated to participants later.

Format: MS word document, Times New Roman, 12 points, 1.5 spacing, 1.27 cm margin

Last date for abstract submission: 15th July 2025 (2nd Call)

Decision on acceptance of abstract shall be communicated by 18th July 2025 (2nd Call)

Registration: 21st July – 25th July 2025

Chief Patron: Professor B.L. Ahuja, Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor, Bodoland University

Patron: Dr Subung Basumatary, Registrar, Bodoland University

Advisor: Professor P.K. Patra, Head and Dean of Languages, Bodoland University

Convener: Dr Pratusha Bhowmik, Assistant Professor, Bodoland University

Co-conveners: Dr Debajyoti Biswas. Associate Professor, Bodoland University, Kokrajhar

Dr. Sudev Ch. Basumatary, Assistant Professor, Bodoland University

Dr. Manash Pratim Borah, Birangana Sati Sadhani Rajyik Vishwavidyalaya

Dr. Debabhuson Borah, Birangana Sati Sadhani Rajyik Vishwavidyalaya

Ms. Kasmita Bora, Assistant Professor, Bhattadev University

Coordinators:

Dr Chandrima Sen, Department of English, Bodoland University

Dr. Nushar Bargayary, Department of History, Bodoland University

Dr. Kuruvella Babu Shankar Rao, Department of English, Birangana Sati Sadhani Rajyik Vishwavidyalaya

Dr. Diganta Borgohain, Assistant Professor, Bhattadev University

Members of Organising committee:

All Faculty Members of the Department of English, and History, Bodoland University.

Publication: After peer-review of the shortlisted articles, a special issue will be published by Bandung: Journal of the Global South (Scopus Q1), and an edited book will be published byD e Gruyter Brill. The special issue will be edited by Debajyoti Biswas (lead guest-editor) and Pak Nung Wong (Editor-in-Chief). For more information visit journal website: Bandung:Journal of the Global South