“‘Postcolonial’ means the aftermath of colonialism and the situation that resulted from it. Many would argue that the term ‘post’ refers more to a situation after the colonialization rather than after the independence from it. It is about a new way of reading and interpret data and literature.”
Another participant reflected: “During the mini-conference, it struck me how religion, in different ways and in different contexts, has such a profound effect on people’s daily lives. Especially in the (post-) conflict situations we talked about, religion often is both one of the instigators of the violence, and a very interesting tool for doing research.”
Another student commented: “In-depth postcolonial studies are needed as a tool to reform the academia itself. Scientific discussions are repeatedly centered on Western Science, Philosophy, and Theology, or usually use a Christian lens and understanding to examine other world religions/revelations. Accordingly, the typical phenomenon such as the struggles of black women/men facing injustice, religious minorities, oppressed communities, corrupt economic systems of Third World countries have become not more than just the objects of research. Therefore, postcolonial studies are crucial to the extent of our epistemology being devised to get a fuller picture of the world. It is vital to enrich our cognition with postcolonial consciousness.”
The Mini-Conference was hosted by the Amsterdam Center for Religion and Peace & Justice Studies, VU-Faculty of Religions and Theology, and the Doopsgezind Seminarium – with the support of PACS
(Interdisciplinary Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, VU Amsterdam).