Against Standardisation: Reflections on Decolonisation, Logic and Economics

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Venkatachalam, Ragupathy; Diviya, . and Kumar, Sunil Mitra. 2025. Against Standardisation: Reflections on Decolonisation, Logic and Economics. New Mathematics and Natural Computation, ISSN 1793-0057 [Article] (Forthcoming)

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This paper considers the notion of decolonisation through the concerns of epistemic domination and standardisation in the context of economics. Exploring the connections between colonisation and the drive to standardise across different spheres, it briefly outlines how standardisation has occurred in economic theorising, especially in the mathematical mode. The excessive, unchallenged reliance of economic theory on classical mathematics and logic to formulate economic problems is highlighted. Building on this, it draws from alternative approaches to logic and makes a case for adopting pluralism of logics -- and not just of theories and methods -- in economics. Overall, we argue for conceiving decolonisation as a process not simply of undoing existing colonial influences, but also, by adopting a pluralist approach, of resisting future attempts at epistemic colonisation.

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