Decolonial Work - Pruning Bonsai vs. Metabolizing Decay

Summary

A clarifying contrast between two approaches to decolonial work. The first is like pruning a bonsai, managing appearances through “institutional reforms, language policing, and compliance-driven inclusion efforts” while “the soil remains untouched”, and so often failing to address “the extractive, competitive, and scarcity-driven logics that continue to shape relationality, even in spaces recognized as progressive.” A metabolic approach instead tends to the soil, asking “What needs to decompose for new possibilities to emerge?”, and means “working with collapse rather than against it”. Language choice is integral, but instead of asking “Is this the correct word to use?”, we’re encouraged to ask “What relational movements does this language create?” A table sets the two side by side, and GTDF’s own questions are worth sitting with: “What are we feeding? What are we willing to let rot?”

Rationale

Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures has been a touchstone for us. ‘Metabolising, not pruning’ is one root of the ‘cultivation not conversion’ in Getting Deep, and of holding our labels lightly.