Corn on the Cob, Epistemic Locks, Decolonial Musings: Notes from RWI Conference in Istanbul

                                     

There are few things quite as disorienting as boarding a flight with the US–Israel–Iran war nexus swirling ominously in your mind. With every headline about drones, strikes, and escalating geopolitics, I was half-convinced my Istanbul-bound plane would be grounded before it ever took off. But lo and behold — the universe conspired in my favour (once again!). I made it safely to Turkey, passport unstamped by any last-minute cancellations.

I was in Istanbul for a week-long conference organized by RWI, “Transitional Justice and Minorities in Afghanistan: Future Prospects and Comparative Perspectives” (23rd–27th June). Sounds heavy? It was. But before the scholarly wrestling matches began, I treated myself to a solo weekend. I wandered into the Grand Bazaar — a labyrinth of shiny trinkets, spices, carpets, and more Nazar Boncuğu (those famous “evil eyes”) than you could count. If protective charms could talk, I’m sure they’d be saying, “Good luck haggling with your foreign accent!” I quickly learned that my foreign accent has inflationary powers; everything costs ten times more when you sound like an outsider, even if your face blends right in. Still, I ended my day victoriously with a roasted corn on the cob — fresh, perfectly tender, and just lightly sweetened by nature itself. It’s the small kernels of joy that sustain us.

From Keynotes to Knotty Questions

Monday rolled around, and the conference was off to a serious start. One of the keynote speakers was Richard Bennett, a name synonymous with human rights in Afghanistan. His decades of work demand respect — and rightly so — but the discourse felt decidedly straitjacketed. The language was classic liberal internationalism: human rights, good governance, and the ghost of the “saviour complex” lurking politely in the margins.

I couldn’t resist. When Bennett mentioned the Taliban banning him for raising “too sensitive” topics like gender apartheid and ethnic minorities, I asked (half question, half provocation): Did you ever try to negotiate with them? Cue audible gasps. And then I lobbed the larger hand grenade: Is there room for genuine engagement with the Taliban, and how do we define it without becoming complicit?

Suddenly, the room buzzed with talk of “engagement.” Some participants worried I’d accidentally given the Taliban a PR department. Others pondered the semantics: What do we mean by engagement? Who decides? It reminded me of Mahmood Mamdani’s brilliant provocation: “As soon as you define something, it becomes colonial.” This quote echoed through my mind (and out of my mouth) repeatedly during the week, because the impulse to fix, pin down, and universalise is precisely how we end up replicating coloniality — even in the name of “justice.”

Relationality: More Than Networking

Between panels and roundtables, the real magic was relational. Yes, the presentations sparked debate, but the coffee breaks, dinners, and corridor conspiracies forged genuine connections. We asked difficult questions — not just what we research but how and with whom. I realised that my own work, which unapologetically critiques foreign interventions and the saviour–victim complex, sits awkwardly in many of these spaces.

My presentation, for instance, poked at the raw nerve of “victimhood” narratives — especially the framing of Afghan women as perpetual damsels-in-distress, in need of rescue by outsiders (and their convenient military hardware). I received vigorous disagreements. Apparently, questioning the international “saving apparatus” is still a bridge too far for some. But I stand by it. If we want a decolonial future for Afghanistan, we must push back on these frameworks that deny people agency while pretending to defend their rights.

Meanwhile, my “mysterious” accent kept sparking conversations on the side. In a way, it became a relational bridge: a reminder that identity is fluid, our ways of speaking and being are hybrid, and we are constantly co-creating meaning in-between. Isn’t that, after all, what decoloniality demands?

The Accent Adventures: A Sonic Reflection on History and Connection

Istanbul offered me a fascinating—and at times amusing—mirror to reflect on my own voice and the tangled histories it carries. Over the week, my accent became a kind of diplomatic puzzle, sparking endless curiosity and compliments. To some Americans, I sounded distinctly Welsh—which, honestly, caught me off guard and gave me a good chuckle. To continental Europeans, I was a curious mix of “American and Irish.” Meanwhile, local Afghans heard unmistakable traces of Britishness in my speech.

This playful misrecognition was more than just funny — it was a vivid reminder that our accents are living maps of migration, histories of colonial entanglement, and ongoing relations across borders. Just as decolonial thinking challenges fixed definitions, it also invites us to hear accents not as fixed markers of identity, but as dynamic, relational stories woven through time and place. In this way, coloniality doesn’t just hide in concepts or politics—it hums quietly in the very way we speak.

Leaving Istanbul, I walked away with three big reflections.

First, accents aren’t just about how we sound—they’re living stories of migration, history, and relation, sparking curiosity and connection in the most unexpected ways.

Second, a conference on transitional justice that skips a deep examination of coloniality—and the epistemic locks that keep us confined to certain ways of knowing—is only scratching the surface. Without challenging these ingrained frameworks and the colonial legacies embedded in our knowledge systems, any talk of justice risks reproducing the same power imbalances it aims to dismantle. For real change to happen, we need to confront these entrenched power dynamics head-on and open space for alternative, decolonial ways of understanding and acting.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, relationality—moving beyond abstract theory into everyday practice—is our way out of the “straitjacketed” ways of knowing that confine and limit us. We need spaces where different eyes (thank you, Glissant) can truly “seek the space of the world,” embracing multiplicity and openness rather than fixed definitions.

At this conference, it became clear that some of the richest relationship-building didn’t happen only in formal sessions, but in informal moments—in casual conversations, shared meals, and those small exchanges where new, sometimes fugitive ideas quietly took root and began to grow. These relational spaces are where rebirth begins.

As filmmaker Jenn Nkiru so powerfully reminds us, “Rebirth is necessary.” This rebirth calls for shedding old, colonial frameworks and epistemic locks, allowing new ways of thinking, knowing, and connecting to emerge. It’s in these moments of relational openness—marked by awkward questions, generous disagreements, accent curiosities, and ideas slipping between definitions—that transformation becomes possible.

So here’s to keeping our scholarship—and our conversations—a bit out of joint, always pushing beyond comfort zones and toward genuine renewal and change.