Autonomous knowledge; decolonial thought; intellectual imperialism, academic dependency, captive mind 

Webinar Series 

This presentation discusses the meaning and implications of the idea of autonomous knowledge against the backdrop of the problems of intellectual imperialism and academic dependency in the global production of knowledge. These problems form the structural context within which the intellectual problems of Eurocentrism, Orientalism and the captive mind exist. Recognition of these problems had led for decades to the call for the decolonization of knowledge in the humanities, social sciences and area studies, as well as agitation to decolonize the university and curriculum. I discuss the above as well as extend the notion of autonomous knowledge to freedom from not only Eurocentric domination, but also from domination by the state and religious authority. This is done with reference to the problem of sectarianism. I also discuss how the writings of Said Nursi may be considered as a resource for autonomous knowledge production in the sense of both a counter-Eurocentric as well as an anti-sectarian discourse.
 

Syed Farid Alatas is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. He also headed the Department of Malay Studies at NUS from 2007 till 2013. He lectured at the University of Malaya in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies prior to joining NUS. In the early 1990s, he was a Research Associate at the Women and Human Resource Studies Unit, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Prof. Alatas has authored numerous books and articles, including Ibn Khaldun (Oxford University Press, 2013); Applying Ibn Khaldun: The Recovery of a Lost Tradition in Sociology (Routledge, 2014), and (with Vineeta Sinha) Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon (Palgrave, 2017) and "The State of Feminist Theory in Malaysia" in Maznah Mohamad & Wong Soak Koon, eds., Feminism: Malaysian Reflections and Experience (special issue of Kajian Malaysia: Journal of Malaysian Studies), 12, 1-2 (1994): 25-46. His areas of interest are the sociology of Islam, social theory, religion and reform, intra- and inter-religious dialogue, and the study of Orientalism in modern knowledge production.