What does decolonising mean?
Decolonising means undoing colonial rule or confronting the structures, assumptions, and cultural effects created by colonialism. Historically, the term has referred especially to political independence and the withdrawal or ending of foreign colonial control. In contemporary academic, cultural, and institutional settings, it has broadened to include examining whose knowledge and perspectives have been privileged, how colonial histories have been represented, and how museums, schools, universities, and other organisations can change their practices. The word therefore carries both a political and an intellectual dimension: it can describe the formal end of a colonial relationship and the longer, often incomplete work of correcting its legacy. The form decolonising is chiefly British, whereas American usage generally prefers decolonizing. The related noun decolonisation names the wider process, while the verb is commonly used in constructions such as decolonising a country, archive, or curriculum.
verbDecolonising is the act or process of undoing colonial rule or addressing the continuing effects of colonialism. In cultural and academic contexts, it can also mean revising institutions, histories, or curricula to move beyond colonial assumptions and perspectives.
- The political process of ending or reversing colonial rule and colonial control.
- The cultural or intellectual process of examining and dismantling the assumptions, structures, and perspectives sustained by colonialism.
"The commission is working with local communities to decolonise the museum's collection and its display practices."
"The movement advocated decolonising the island and returning political authority to its indigenous inhabitants."
"Universities increasingly examine how to decolonise the curriculum without simply removing important historical works."
Decolonising reaches beyond independence: it asks how colonial rule continues to shape institutions, knowledge, and the stories a society tells about itself.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does decolonising come from?
Decolonising is the present participle of the British English verb decolonise, formed from colonial and the suffix -ise, with de- indicating reversal or removal. Colonial, colony, and colonise belong to a word family that developed through French from Latin colonia, originally referring to a settled or cultivated colony. The wider sense of reversing colonial rule became especially prominent during the anticolonial movements of the twentieth century.
Related word forms
How decolonising is actually used
The -ising spelling is standard in British English, while decolonizing is more common in American English. The word is especially associated with formal political, historical, and academic discourse; in cultural contexts it often implies ongoing institutional and interpretive change rather than only a legal transfer of power.