Foundational concepts of decolonial and southern epistemologies forms part of the series ‘Global forum on Southern epistemologies’. The book takes the structure of Zoom conversations with eleven experts in the field of decolonial and Southern epistemology that are transcribed into a book volume accompanied by a short video. Each chapter's main speaker(s) engage in a discussion with an audience, mediated by one of the members of the forum. As Linda Tuhiwai Smith suggests in her chapter, terms such as decolonizing are not a ‘narrow idea about one possibility’ (161); accordingly, the multiple voices and questions from the audience offer nuanced perspectives that invite the reader to critically engage with the material. Much of the conversations reveal how racism and colonial power manifest in language and education, pointing to how understanding language necessitates a broader comprehension of geopolitical relations of power dominated by colonialism's legacy.

In chapter 2, Jean Comaroff touches on how colonization has forever impacted global North/South relations, complicating the notion of theory from the South when the North and South are now inextricably entangled. Boaventura de Sousa Santos expands in chapter 3 on an ‘ecology of knowledges’, where ways of knowing from Global Souths should be treated as equally valid as scientific thought to fight ‘against capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy’ (42). Interestingly, his concepts are questioned by Comaroff in chapter 2 as idealistic, bringing the reader into the complexities of this topic. In chapter 4, Molefi Kete Asante critiques postmodernism's ambiguity and articulates Afrocentricity to establish an understanding of humanity and civilisation beginning in Africa. Focusing on language in Africa in particular, Ngūgī wa Thiong'o's discussion in chapter 5 foregrounds how language hierarchies are intertwined with colonialism and can be confronted by actively writing and publishing in African languages rather than the dominant colonial languages (e.g. English and French). Drucilla Cornell & Souleymane Bachir Diagne's dialogue in chapter 6 focuses on African philosophical concepts uBuntu and Nite to understand human relations, between each other and to the natural world. This ties to discussions in other chapters that highlight the dehumanization that colonial and post-colonial world order rests on. Chapter 7 considers Walter Mignolo & Catherine Walsh's perspective on decoloniality, where both scholars emphasize ways to ‘challenge Westernized logics and ways of thinking’ in university spaces (130). Connecting again to university power structures, Smith's conversation in chapter 8 tackles what many of the previous chapters communicate, offering alternatives to exploitative research practices on indigenous communities through framing White researchers as allies rather than experts on indigenous research.

The epilogue is also emblematic of what the book addresses in its content and form. Through interwoven personal stories and a narrative structure, Clarissa Menezes Jordão questions expectations of knowledge presentation in an academic text. The chorus of contributors not only tell, but show a ‘crack’ (123) in the academic knowledge world where a book becomes a dialogic construction with an open invitation for further thought on the concepts it explores, ending with an expectation that the ‘conversation continues in the ‘after party’’ (181).