Navigating epistemic colonialism in an Indian MBA: Student experience beyond colonial difference

Abstract

The global field of management education and Master of Business Administration programmes constitute a hierarchy that propagates new and ongoing forms of epistemic colonialism, creating challenges and dilemmas for institutions and faculty members, especially in post-colonial locations. Limited attention has been paid to hearing and understanding students’ voices from the Global South and their experiences of this hierarchy. This study presents the findings of mixed-methods research (interviews, survey) at an elite Indian Business School into how Master of Business Administration students located in India navigate a ‘Western’ Master of Business Administration. We use Ashis Nandy’s idea of cultural resources, Walter Mignolo’s enactive epistemologies and Gloria Anzaldúa’s border consciousness to discuss how such students ‘survive’ epistemic domination through particular practices (translation, silent coping, domestication of the West) and subjectivities (subordinated, coping/resisting, socio-culturally empowered); that is to say, students’ own decolonizing praxis. The contribution of this article lies in this demonstration of how students thus do decolonial work, domesticating the Western Master of Business Administration while skilfully navigating a pluriversality of management knowledges. Insights may be used by Faculty to enhance the relevance and quality of Master of Business Administration education, by listening to and legitimizing Southern student perspectives.