Institutional Critique as Decolonial Practice

Sor Juana engaged in institutional critique by exposing how the Church, education, and court systems controlled women's intellectual development. In postcolonial decolonization, institutional critique becomes a crucial practice. Universities, governments, media, corporations, and NGOs maintain colonial structures even after political independence: curricula that erase indigenous history, hiring practices that privilege certain groups, policies that extract resources. Institutional critique means mapping these systems, documenting their mechanisms, and demanding transformation. This might include curricular reform, diverse hiring, reparations policies, or organizational restructuring. Unlike individual resistance, institutional critique recognizes that personal change alone cannot decolonize when systems remain intact. It demands that institutions themselves—their structures, resources, decision-making processes, and values—become sites of decolonial transformation. This practice combines analysis with strategic action to reshape the institutions through which most postcolonial peoples navigate daily life.