On July 7, the Tom Lantos Institute hosted a workshop on the issue of decolonizing minority rights discourse. The workshop brought together a select group of scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and collaboratively explored how the agenda of decolonizing minority rights discourse can be advanced. 

Please find below the concept note prepared for the event. 

WORKSHOP ON ‘DECOLONISING MINORITY RIGHTS DISCOURSE’
7 July 2024 | Budapest, Hungary

Despite formal decolonisation processes, colonial connotations such as the ‘standard of civilisation’ or the presumed incapacity of certain people to govern their own affairs, continue in more subtle forms to inform, shape, and govern current global affairs and institutions to the disadvantage of already marginalised communities. Against this backdrop, in recent years,
calls have been made to proactively look into ways in which colonial legacies can be undone and how colonial links can be de-linked, if possible at all. As part of this ‘decolonising’ agenda, minority rights scholars are also gradually exploring what a decolonising project in the field of minority rights would look like.

Mainstream discourse on minority rights embodies a series of normative biases and assumptions, which ignore the centrality of power-relations, subaltern agency, political economy, hegemonic global governance structures, and masculinity, among others, to the conceptualisation of the minority and its protection. As a result, some of the core concepts such as the definition of minority, statehood, discrimination, violence, and protection, are often archaic, mono-dimensional, and marked by colonial understandings. Hence, there is an urgent need for decolonising foundational tenets in contemporary minority rights discourse. In doing
so, it is imperative to critically examine relations of power and subaltern agency in the working of minority rights and, in this connection, to expose the kind of discourse they produce.

In a recent piece, Shahabuddin (2023) identified five core areas of relevance to the project on decolonising minority rights discourse. First, the very conception of the minority needs to be critically reevaluated through decolonial lenses to expose a sense of ‘otherness’ and ‘backwardness’ embedded in the concept. Second, the continuation of colonial boundaries in postcolonial states created and aggravated the minority issue in many postcolonial states. However, the decolonial project cannot be reduced to the issue of colonial boundaries as a stand-alone item. Instead, the decolonising agenda requires a critical examination of the reification of the state itself, as part of a much broader notion of decolonising the state as a prerequisite for decolonising minority rights discourse. Third, any decolonial project must pay attention to and engage with subaltern voices and perspectives. More specifically, the agenda of decolonising minority rights needs to mainstream the often-ignored aspect of resistance by minorities. Going beyond an elitist discourse on minority rights and minority protection within institutional sites, the decolonial project demands a sharp focus on learning from grassroots practices. It is in everyday struggles of minorities to protect their lives and livelihood that actual decolonisation is taking place. Fourth, the agenda of decolonising minority rights needs to critically engage with the perception and role of law in minority rights protection. The project needs to reflect on how legal concepts and categories are themselves tools of oppression. This will then help underscore the strategic use of law as a site of contestation and also explore other possible languages of resistance, such as social movements, outside the domain of law. These strategic aspects of law and their role in social movements should form an important part of decolonising contemporary minority rights discourse. And finally, developmental ideology historically offered neo-colonialism and imperialism an avenue to continue to subjugate postcolonial states and peoples in many ways. In decolonising minority rights discourse, it is vitally important to take seriously the political economy of violence and expose how minorities suffer economic marginalisation at multiple levels by powerful states, international financial institutions, postcolonial states, and national and transnational corporations. Compared to civil and political rights, this is rather an ignored area in contemporary minority rights discourse demanding adequate attention.

This is not an exhaustive list, and we need to identify and investigate other innovative ways of decolonising contemporary minority rights discourse. To that end, the Workshop aims to bring together a select group of scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds to collaboratively explore how the agenda of decolonising minority rights discourse can be advanced. Each participant will be asked to identify at least one area of relevance to minority rights discourse and make a short presentation (max. 10 mins) on their thoughts on how contemporary thinking in that area can be ‘decolonised’. Participants are also encouraged to reflect on potential challenges involved in the process.

The Workshop is convened by Professor Mohammad Shahabuddin (Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham). Participation in the Workshop is by invitation only. The Workshop builds on a previous workshop on the broader theme of ‘Decolonisation and Minority Rights’, organised by the Tom Lantos Institute in July last year. Following the 2024 Workshop, we hope to take the agenda forward by organising a conference on ‘Decolonising Minority Rights’ in 2025.