Istanbul will host the World Decolonization Forum on May 11-12 as organizers open a three-stage initiative that is set to run through 2030. The gathering will take place at the Ataturk Cultural Center and is being organized by the Institute Social.
The forum will bring together Walter Mignolo, Mireille Fanon, Lilian Thuram, Guo Changgang, Kemal Sayar, Enis Doko, Joseph Massad, Halil Berktay and Ann Pettifor to discuss decolonizing knowledge production and circulation. Participants are expected to examine occupation policies, technological transformations, algorithmic and data colonialism, and the inequalities that shape education and culture. The first day will end with a concert by Emel Mathlouthi.
The forum comes with a broader program that begins two days earlier. An exhibition titled The Burden of Humanity: Decolonization Today opens on May 9 at the AKM Art Gallery, with Majid Majidi attending the opening, and Decolonize Film Days follows on May 13-14 at Atlas Cinema with eight free screenings exploring colonial histories.
Partner institutions include Al Jazeera Center for Studies, ISAM, Fudan University, the University of Leeds and CLACSO, underscoring the range of academic and cultural organizations attached to the project. The statement says experts will examine how colonial legacies continue to shape political, economic and social systems, placing the Istanbul events inside a wider push to study how those legacies still travel through technology, education and culture.
That broader ambition is also where the friction lies. The forum is presented as a search for alternatives to colonial power, but it will do so through the same global scholarly and cultural networks it is trying to interrogate. Whether the initiative can move from debate to lasting publication, seminar and media work by 2030 will be the measure that matters most.
