Percorsi a ‘sguardi multipli’: sfide e riflessioni sulla costruzione di pratiche decoloniali in università

‘Multiple Gaze’ Paths: Challenges and Reflections on the Construction of Decolonial Practices in the University. Reconstructing dynamics that emerged from a project on literary texts and racism in Italy, proposed in 2021 in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Bologna, the article aims to reflect on the positive aspects, limits and critical issues of the path. The reflection will focus on specific aspects related to the project: the methods and choices of developing the work carried out with students, colleagues and teachers; the central role of the connection between text, body and experiences of racialized authors; the questioning of the rigid opposition between artistic quality and political value of literary works; and the need for cultural productions based on listening to historically marginalized voices. The proposed analysis will also be connected to broader aspects: the gap between anti-racist and decolonial projects and the real democratization of university; the question of responsibility, positioning and privilege in the university; the challenges posed by the “professionalising” insertion of professors into the neoliberal university system and the geopolitics of power in which this reality operates; and the importance of continuing to enact practices of decolonizing teaching and research, while being aware of the limits of these attempts. Finally, it will be proposed to interpret the university as a ‘crossing space’ in order to deconstruct the rhetoric of belonging and permanence – namely, ‘being of the university’ – and promote the idea of a space of connections that is open and capable of building transformative networks and alliances.