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Inspired by the global resonance of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, this book adds to the current discussion on the idea of decolonizing Europe. Drawing inspiration from the study of colonialism, postcolonialism and the imperative to decolonize knowledge and practice, the editors bring together a group of scholars approaching these issues through ethnographic inquiry. The volume explores how race, colonial legacies and structural inequality are addressed across diverse European contexts – north, central, eastern and southern – as well as in their entanglements with regions beyond Europe. It offers critical, grounded insights into the possibilities and challenges of decolonial thinking today.
"This book is an indispensable and invaluable resource to researchers and practitioners working in the field of postcolonial studies, European politics and racial justice, and social movements. It will be rewarding to a cover-to-cover reading, wherein its cumulative argument is inscribed, and to a discriminating reading in which each chapter is a self-contained empirical contribution." Reviews in Anthropology
“This is a very important contribution for those dedicated to decolonial studies… one of the highlights of the book is the diversity of experiences and context examined by researchers of various nationalities and academic, institutional and professional backgrounds.” • Fatima Cecchetto, National School of Public Health of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation
Patrícia Ferraz de Matos is an Integrated Researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Education and Development Studies (CeiED) at Lusófona University since 2026. She was an Assistant Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon (ULisboa) (2013–2025), and is a member of the teaching staff of the PhD Programme in Anthropology at ULisboa since 2013. She is an Associate Editor of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures (2020–present), Coordinator of the Europeanist Network of the EASA (2020–2026), Deputy Director of Análise Social (2021–2026), and, since 2019, corresponding member in Portugal of HOAN (History of Anthropology Network, EASA). She is Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, elected in 2019, and since 2025 is Secretary-Elect of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe (SAE, American Anthropological Association). She is the author of The Colours of the Empire (Berghahn 2013 [Victor de Sá Prize of Contemporary History 2005]) and Anthropology, Nationalism and Colonialism (Berghahn 2023).
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
Foreword: Ending Colonial Complicities: Europe and the Intersectional Struggles for Racial Justice
Annalisa Frisina
Introduction: Decolonizing Europe: Ethnographies of National and Transnational Projects
Patrícia Ferraz de Matos and Livio Sansone
Chapter 1. Decolonizing Europe and the Problem of Neonationalism
Jordan Kiper and Chadra Pittman
Chapter 2. The Measure of Time: Repurposing the Archives, Repatriating Human Remains
Pegi Vail
Chapter 3. People of African Descent and Antiracist Mobilization in Post-Imperial Portugal
Bruno Sena Martins
Chapter 4. Decolonizing Education [in Italy and Portugal] through Arts: Pass the Mic!
Francesca De Luca and Anna Serlenga
Chapter 5. On (De)Colonial Education, Anthropological Knowledge and ‘Heritage Digestion’: Insights on the History of Anthropology in Portugal
Carmeliza Rosario and Ema Pires
Chapter 6. The Kurdish Struggle as an Anticolonial Dynamo: From Nationalist Struggle to Militant Internationalism
José Vicente Mertz
Chapter 7. Rethinking Conflicts: The Cold War Museum in Žemaitija National Park
Vida Savoniakaitė
Chapter 8. Debunking the Colonial Narrative in Belgium: Public Space Decolonization in Brussels and Cultural Objects Restitution to Central African Countries
Axel Mudahemuka Gossiaux
Epilogue: The Future of the Decolonial: Contradictory Tendencies in Europe
Patrícia Ferraz de Matos and Livio Sansone
Index