decolonize

verb

de·​col·​o·​nize (ˌ)dē-ˈkä-lə-ˌnīz 

variants also British decolonise

decolonized; decolonizing; decolonizes

transitive verb

1

: to free (a people or area) from colonial status : to relinquish control of (a subjugated people or area)

the year the country was decolonized

The country faces international pressure to decolonize the territory.

2

: to free from the dominating influence of a colonizing power

especially : to identify, challenge, and revise or replace assumptions, ideas, values, and practices that reflect a colonizer's dominating influence and especially a Eurocentric dominating influence

To decolonise and not just diversify curriculums is to recognise that knowledge is inevitably marked by power relations. … A decolonised curriculum would bring questions of class, caste, race, gender, ability and sexuality into dialogue with each other, instead of pretending that there is some kind of generic identity we all share.

—Priyamvada Gopal

Per a statement, staff [at the University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum] have removed a total of 120 human remains from display, moving them to storage as part of a museum-wide effort to decolonize the Pitt Rivers' collections.

—Nora McGreevy

Decolonizing science will also involve encouraging Western institutions that hold imperial scientific collections to reflect more on the violent political contexts of war and colonization in which these items were acquired. An obvious step forward would be to discuss repatriating scientific specimens to former colonies, as botanists working on plants originally from Angola but held primarily in Europe have done.

—Rohan Deb Roy

Decolonizing my mind has been a continual process of rethinking the values that guide my actions. It's emotional, intellectual and spiritual labor that involves centering myself as an African-American woman and not allowing my entire existence to be a performance tailored for the white, cisgender male gaze …

—JerVae (Jae Anthony)

Examples of decolonize in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

If no music festival is available for decolonizing action, any bar or restaurant with live or recorded music will do. —Daniel Foster, National Review, 30 Nov. 2023

Below, in a conversation that has been condensed and edited, Frank and Whitewater discuss decolonizing Indigenous ingredients, minimizing waste in the kitchen, and changing our expectations around produce. —Megan Zhang, Saveur, 22 Nov. 2023

Part of the work, according to Reyes, is having conversations that deconstruct and decolonize our relationship with the land. —Camille Padilla Dalmau and Frances Medina, refinery29.com, 4 Oct. 2023

This space amplifies and continues to celebrate generations of beauty rituals and wellness practices, while tackling important topics like Black beauty and classism, desirability politics, and decolonizing clean beauty. —Cassandra Pintro, Vogue, 30 Aug. 2023

Nance’s celebratory images and the photographs in Onabanjo’s latest exhibition speak to the complexity of decolonizing nationalism—balancing an awareness of the cruel legacy of empire with the rapturous achievement of independence. —Tausif Noor, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2023

Perhaps the movement to decolonize medicine in favor of creating more equitable and inclusive practice will be essential to setting up health care systems that serve all women, including medical workers. —Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu, STAT, 24 Aug. 2023

Then maybe plant that, because that’s kind of decolonizing your garden. —Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 22 June 2023

To decolonize means to return and respect the earth and see yourself as part of it. —Amanda Alcantara, refinery29.com, 7 June 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1851, in the meaning defined at sense 1