An intellectually stimulating afternoon at the Centre for Critical Peace Studies (CCPS) at the University of Management and Technology saw Dr Ahmad Waqas Waheed, Executive Director at Roads Initiative, present insights from his book The Myth of Decolonization and the Global South: Mapping Coloniality through Pakistani International Relations. The session, part of the Books, Ideas & Coffee: From the Global South series, brought together scholars and students for a sustained conversation on how colonial legacies persist in academic life.
Dr Waheed unpacked the hidden continuities of colonial power in knowledge production, showing how intellectual and cultural dependencies endure long after political independence. By questioning the dominance of Eurocentric paradigms, he urged attendees to reimagine international relations through the lenses of local histories, epistemologies and lived realities.
The discussion emphasised the practical work of decolonizing knowledge in Pakistani scholarship, calling on researchers to reassess methodologies, citation practices and the frameworks that reproduce external hierarchies of thought. Participants engaged with the idea that decolonization must be intellectual and moral as well as political, reclaiming the ability to think, write and produce knowledge from the Global South.
Organisers at CCPS said the event reaffirmed the centre’s commitment to creating critical spaces where dialogue, scholarship and reflection challenge inherited assumptions. The session sought to encourage Pakistani academics and students to pursue alternative epistemologies and to place local experience at the heart of analyses in international relations.
