What is 'Decolonial’?

On April 8th, I had the opportunity to revisit an essay that I wrote about a scandal that took place approximately three years ago, with a humanities class, taught by Kerri Gamache at Middlesex Community College. While questions about ethics in the context of that scandal seemed a bit straightforward, the larger question - “What is ‘decolonial’?” - is the one that I have been and still am intimidated by as both a researcher and teacher. The talk became a part of the process of processing that question for myself as I continue to reflect on, often time uncomfortably, about positionality when I claim to do research on the intimacies of the lives of others, even of my own family. The question of ‘can the subaltern speak’ then expands further and becomes, “Why are we asking this question in the first place, and who are we to ask?”