DeCoGLAM community of practice events

About the DeCoGLAM project

This project is funded by the Collaborative Research Cultures Project of the University of Strathclyde supported by a Wellcome Trust grant. You can read more about this project here. For this project, we collaborate with Glasgow Life and all institutions which are interested in decolonising GLAMs and academia.

Why this topic?

Decolonisation in knowledge production organisations (including academia and GLAMs) is vital to challenging and changing colonialism's negative impacts. Colonial systems of knowledge engrained in the practice of GLAMs impact the quality and trustworthiness of research based on primary sources. Without decolonising GLAMs, decolonisation of the curricula is not realistic or achievable.

Staff members involved in decolonisation tasks need a range of support. Many have lived experiences and traumas and often have fewer opportunities for growth and leadership. Decolonisation activity uptake in GLAMs is still relatively slow, and there is a substantial lack of guidance across multiple intervention areas .

This project seeks to create a community of practice (CoP) bringing together academics, GLAM professionals, and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) experts which would bring decolonisation efforts in the GLAM sectors to a new level. We plan to support this via sharing and learning from successes as well as from failures and via co-creating new resources which would help those involved in decolonisation work.