Not incommensurable incommensurability: Michalinos Zembylas, ‘Tensions between decolonisation and social justice in education: seeking pathways beyond incommensurability’, Oxford Review of Education, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Not incommensurable incommensurability: Michalinos Zembylas, ‘Tensions between decolonisation and social justice in education: seeking pathways beyond incommensurability’, Oxford Review of Education, 2025

21Jul25

Abstract: This conceptual paper examines the tensions that emerge in debates about decolonisation in education, particularly those that position decolonisation as incommensurable with social justice projects. Scholars have identified pitfalls in the incommensurability thesis, including the risk of reifying colonial binaries – such as the settler-Indigenous dichotomy – and fragmenting alliances between decolonisation, anti-racism, and other justice-oriented movements. The paper argues that these pitfalls can obscure the efforts to challenge the interconnected colonial logics of dispossession, exploitation, and racialisation that shape educational structures and experiences. Drawing on examples where Indigenous, Black, and racialised migrant settler subjectivities are brought into dialogue, the paper proposes a synergistic approach that bridges these projects and theoretical frameworks. By advocating for relationalities between decolonial and social justice politics in education, the paper highlights the potential of solidarity across differences, emphasising the need for intersectional and coalitional approaches that resist fragmentation.

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