Decolonizing inclusion in performing academia: Trans-inclusion as phronetic border thinking/doing praxis

Abstract

In this paper, inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa, we draw uponour embodied experiences as non-white scholars fromdifferent parts of the South to examine our complicity andresponsibility for inclusion in performing a Western, neolib-eral, diversity-oriented, globalizing academia such as theUnited States' Academy of Management. We refer to thedominating practice of inclusion as universalist inclusion(uni-inclusion), where a hegemonic includer includes diversesubaltern others while blind to colonial differences. Weargue that uni-inclusion has a dark shadow that perpetuatesa “you are with us or against us” sentiment of white malesuperiority and violence, even as it elides the deep connect-edness of epistemic, bodily, and material practices in thepraxis of performing academia. Drawing upon our embod-ied and enacted experiences of tenures at Academy ofManagement as borderland scholars with relational reflex-ivity, we propose phronetic border thinking/doing praxis fortrans-inclusion as a non-essentialist possibility of decoloniz-ing inclusion. We share our understanding of how we haveenacted border thinking/doing praxis so that it may providepointers to pluriversalizing academia. Trans-inclusion is aneologism we suggest to indicate a liberating praxis for all inan era of decolonization and empire where diverse includersbeyond self/other dehumanizing binarism engage within anethics of caring and co-existence.