The Global Decolonization Initiative (GloDec) at the BU Pardee School brings together undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs and faculty to develop an intellectual community passionate about understanding the ongoing processes of decolonization through studying borders, borderlands, partitions, identities, race, citizenship and political violence. 

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GloDec comprises four kinds of programs that predominantly relate to student and faculty research. 

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STUDENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

GloDec's research projects include its flagship Partitions Project to develop a database and a series of case studies on territorial partitions, and the Nuclear Sites Project to develop in-depth case studies on nuclear weapons, energy, and mining sites located in the world's borderlands. See the projects' pages for more information.

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STUDENT-LED PROGRAMS 

• "Students for Decolonization" [SDECOL]
  Approved by BU's Student Activities Office (SAO), SDECOL is an independent undergraduate student group that aims to facilitate on-campus communication and research on decolonization and related subjects.

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• Decolonization Film Series
  GloDec's partnership project with SDECOL, with the involvement of M.A. students the film series showcases three films/documentaries per semester on decolonization followed by discussion led by a BU faculty member.

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DECOLONIZATION WORK-IN-PROGRESS SEMINAR SERIES

The seminar is open to Ph.D. students, postdocs, and junior faculty at Boston University and beyond, who are conducting innovative research on themes associated with decolonization. See seminar page for more information.

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DECOLONIZATION@60 EVENTS, 2020-21 & 2021-22 

The Global Decolonization Initiative at the BU Pardee School grew out of a one-day workshop that was to be held at Boston University on March 18, 2020, but could not take place owing to the COVID-19 closures. Hosted on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples,” the aim of that workshop was to lead a provocative discussion on decolonization as multiple global processes that are not frozen in time of the 1940s, 1950s and the 1960s, but rather one that forms an intellectual framework to understand borderlands and political violence today. ​In AY 2020-21 and 2021-22, the content of the workshop will take place on Zoom hosted by the Global Decolonization Initiative [one event per semester].

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