The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy hosted its annual Decolonizing International Relations conference this year, on October 16th and 17th. The conference, founded in 2017, is completely student-run, and it is advertised as “the first conference of its kind within International Relations Graduate Schools.” This year’s iteration of the conference is titled “Reorienting Theoretical Apertures & Embodying Decentered Practice.” Co-chaired by Fletcher Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy students, Sara Sharpe (‘26), Hannah Patterson (‘26), and Stuti Kulkarni (‘26), it seeks to center non-Western knowledge production in international relations, based on the idea that the foundations of scholarly tradition in the field are largely rooted in imperial frameworks. It has the ultimate goal of “institutionalizing a decolonial current that threads through campus life and the communities that we inhabit, via curriculum changes, research centers, and student initiatives.”
Decolonization has historically referred to a colony’s act of gaining independence, but it has since developed into a broader project aimed at addressing colonial impacts diffused throughout society, including academia. The conference materials describe decolonization as “a continuous and actional process that, in challenging systems of oppression, seeks to transform realities through alternative ways of thinking, doing, and living.”
Kulkarni explains that, oftentimes, the materials of Western international relations courses rely on the perspectives of primarily “older white male voices.” She believes that these syllabi reinforce colonial ideals by centering a literary canon that neglects historically marginalized or excluded people. Ancient Greek historian Thucydides, for example, she represented as “power in a vacuum,” saying that a “tradeoff [in curriculum] is necessary” to hear from excluded people.
Sharpe explains that to correct these instances of colonialism in “knowledge production” and engagement, the conference aims to develop a tangible “praxis” of decolonization theory. Patterson, in the conference’s opening remarks, said that it would base its discussions on the lived realities of colonized people in order to “uplift the incredible examples of practical tools of disruption.” She contextualized the conference’s role within the Western academy at large, stating that “here at a Western academic institution…our exploration of colonial power…must be grounded in the tangible ways individuals and groups resist and confront the structural manifestations of this power in which we are all implicated by virtue of our being here.”
The conference consisted of several sessions, which discussed decoloniality’s application to various subfields of international relations. One such session was a panel entitled “Decolonial Pedagogy and Praxis: What does this mean?,” which featured Dr. Anjuli Fahlberg, Dr. Brinton Lykes, and Dr. Kirandeep Kaur.
They framed research as a form of resistance and discussed the inherent restrictions of the institutions and language through which it is conducted today. “The English language that I’m communicating to you in, but also the academic form itself [and] the structures and forms of writing, are colonial,” Dr. Kaur argued. Therefore, she said, “We colonize ourselves every single time we communicate through academic language.”
The last panel of the conference was titled “Reworlding: Decolonial Paths for Climate Futures,” featuring speakers Dr. Kimberly Theidon, Dr. Yasmine Fakhry, and Lauren Peters. They explored the intersections of climate change, globalized industries, and their relation to colonialism. Dr. Theidon, an associate professor at the Fletcher School, connected examples of environmental degradation to the ideology of colonizers, asking the audience to consider “what is more powerful from a colonial perspective than to make other people’s worlds unimaginable, uninhabitable, incommensurate?” Dr. Fakhry, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Lebanese American University, contended that Israel intentionally ecologically damaged South Lebanon in order to displace its residents. Dr. Fakhry concluded that “We have to shift the narrative to use the term of environmental violence and get rid of the other innocent narratives we might be using.”
The Fletcher conference indicates a broader trend of using decolonization as a framework to address perceived inequities in academia and society at large. Maika Sondarjee, Associate Professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa addressed this in her piece “Decolonizing International Relations and Development Studies: What’s in a buzzword?” She argues that “in recent years…decolonizing has been broadly (and very loosely) associated with fighting racism or advocating for anything related to equity, diversity, and inclusion. The term has become trendy in Western academia.”
Although this conference appears to be the first to deal with international relations in particular, other universities across the country and the globe have also held programming that is centered on decolonizing various academic fields. On decolonizing psychology, Delaware State University held a conference and Columbia University’s Teachers College offered training. This discussion extends internationally as well, including a “How To Decolonize Political History” conference at the University of Antwerp and “Journeys of Decolonising” at University College London.
Some scholars argue that the decolonization of educational institutions is a fundamentally flawed concept, though. In an interview, Dr. Anika Prather, professor in the classics department at Howard University, said regarding the decolonization movement in academia that “to cancel [classic texts], to de-colonize, you’re actually creating holes in our understanding of our own history. To decolonize in the way people are talking about now, is to pull us up by the roots. The way we are thinking about decolonizing means your students will not understand Martin Luther King.” Dr. Prather mentioned the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and how almost every piece of literature in the collection cited a Western text.
The language of decolonization and its practice in American education have become especially salient in some circles following the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas’s, October 7th attacks on Israel. The Medford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)––formerly the Tufts SJP, which disaffiliated from the university following a temporary suspension lasting until January of 2027––posted to this effect on October 7, 2025, on Instagram, encouraging supporters to join a rally at the Boston Common. “Do you support decolonization as an abstract theory? Or as a tangible event? And what will you do about it?,” the post asked. The university’s suspension of the group, citing “policy violations which include using images of weapons and urging students to “escalate” and “Join the Student Intifada,” raises the question as to what forms of decolonial resistance institutions deem legitimate within academic and civic spaces. Some believe that in the political expression of this resistance, violence is condoned. Elisha Baker, who leads Columbia’s pro-Israel public affairs committee, Aryeh, cites the influential theory of Frantz Fanon in an essay for the Columbia Law Review. In his essay, Baker wrote that the theory of anti-colonial resistance explicitly encourages violence, quoting Fanon in that the “naked violence” of colonialism “only gives in when confronted with greater violence.” Sara Sharpe, one of the Decolonizing IR conference co-chairs mentioned above, clarified that the conference is not affiliated with Medford SJP.
Back at Tufts, Dr. Fahlberg, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Interim Director of Latin American Studies, discussed the role of scholars who work within communities harmed by colonization. She highlighted the limitations of some of academia’s own theoretical approaches. “Marxism and critical this and critical that, I buy into all of it in theory, and a lot of the critiques are extremely important,” she said. “But when you’re in actual neighborhoods sometimes those things break down in practice.” Dr. Fahlberg also advised students to “not assume anything a professor tells you is ‘truth.’ The university has a very specific value system about what counts as legitimate knowledge. Please do not take that with you.” She continued that “The model we use as Western universities [is] extremely problematic: the radical possibilities are very limited within this kind of traditional university space.”
Artwork by Mia Snyder