Wear the word. Know the word.
Join the waitlist
The waitlist form activates when this deployment's form key is configured — email works now and lands in the same inbox: hello@decolonize.store with subject "Waitlist".
While the presses warm up
The brand stands on a bookshelf, and that part is already live and free: thereading guide sequences the core texts with honest difficulty notes, and theNgugi page covers the book behind most of the search interest in this word.
Why a clothing brand with a syllabus
Statement apparel usually runs ahead of its reading. This label is built the other way around: every piece we print traces to the actual literature — and the site takes Tuck and Yang's famous warning seriously enough to apply it to its own name. A shirt is not decolonization; worn by someone who has read the books, it is at least an invitation to them. That is the standard the first drop has to meet.
Start here
When does the Decolonize shop open?
The apparel line is in production planning now, and we are not going to promise a date we might miss — the waitlist is the honest answer. Joining it gets you first look at the launch drop and a say in what gets printed first. Until then, the reading guide is live, free, and the point of the brand anyway.
What does decolonization mean?
Three related senses, usually collapsed in argument. Historical: the mid-twentieth-century dismantling of European colonial empires across Asia and Africa — India 1947, Ghana 1957, the great wave of African independence around 1960. Intellectual: the project several of this site's core books define — examining how colonialism shaped language, knowledge, and self-image after the flags changed, which is Ngugi's and Fanon's territory. Contemporary: a broader activist usage applied to institutions and curricula, whose scope is itself debated — including by scholars in the field (see Tuck and Yang's famous objection). Knowing which sense a speaker means resolves half the arguments about the word.
Where should I start reading?
Depends on your entry point. For language and culture: Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Decolonising the Mind (1986) — short, clear, and the book behind much of the search interest in this topic. For the psychology and violence of colonialism: Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth (1961). For how the West constructed its image of the East: Edward Said's Orientalism (1978). For a sharp corrective on loose usage of the word: Tuck and Yang's essay "Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor" (2012), which is open-access. The reading guide sequences these with honest difficulty notes.
Searching for MRSA decolonization?
Different topic entirely: in medicine, "decolonization" means clearing bacteria such as MRSA from skin and nasal passages before surgery or in outbreak control — a clinical protocol your healthcare provider manages. This site covers the political and intellectual concept; for the medical protocol, consult clinical sources and your clinician.