PANL, in association with the SLU School of Teacher Education and Liberal Arts (STELA) Philosophy Department, conducted its 18th Annual Conference on October 22-23, 2021. Themed Philosophy and the Task of Decoloniality, plenary speakers and panel presenters from all over the world shared their thoughts on the topic via the Zoom online conferencing platform.
Plenary speakers were composed of Walter D. Mignolo (Duke University, USA), Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni (University of Bayreuth, Germany), Angela Roothaan (VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands), Christopher Ryan B. Maboloc (Ateneo de Davao University, Philippines), Lovelyn C. Paclibar (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines), and Fr. Shierwin A. Cabunilas (San Pablo Seminary, Philippines). The two-day conference covered six plenary lectures and seven panel presentations in total.
Being a country whose history and civilization were mostly influenced by colonialism and colonial thinking, the Philippines is but an appropriate audience to this emerging school of thought or intellectual movement. It was emphasized, though, that decoloniality does not exactly mean severance from our (epistemic and cultural) bonds with the dominant (Western) mentality but rather extrication and reactivation of what is destitute and divested from our own ways of understanding the world. Decoloniality, therefore, aims to heal our deeply-rooted colonial wounds.
