The World Decolonization Forum will be held in Istanbul on May 11-12, bringing together academics, intellectuals and activists from Africa, South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Western critical traditions. The event will feature more than 70 academic papers and a series of parallel cultural programs aimed at fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue.
The forum will take place at the Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) and will run alongside decolonial art exhibitions. During the same week, the Decolonization Film Festival will be held at the Atlas Sineması, offering film screenings intended to complement the forum’s discussions.
Organizers said the combined events are designed to create a space where different disciplines can engage in what they described as a rare and candid dialogue on global knowledge systems, culture and power.
Esra Albayrak, chair of the NÛN Foundation for Education and Culture, said in a statement that anyone who believes human heritage cannot be reduced to a single narrative is invited to attend the forum.
In a written analysis on decolonization, Albayrak argued that colonialism did not end in the 1960s but continues in new forms. She said postcolonial studies have not yet fully explained how colonial structures are reproduced in today’s global order.
She also criticized the global human rights discourse that expanded after the mid-20th century, arguing that despite its stated aims, it has often failed to move beyond what she described as a “white man’s burden” framework and, at times, has become a tool of domination and social control.
Albayrak further pointed to what she called “epistemic arrogance” in global knowledge production, saying the concentration of intellectual authority in a single center contributes to alienation and a broader crisis of meaning.
She said leading universities and international legal institutions should be critically examined for their role in shaping current global crises and sustaining what she described as hegemonic systems of knowledge and power.
