Language & Decolonisation ii

Language & Decolonisation ii

From Accent of Women by Nita Okoko, Zoe, Fiza Zali, Madhvi Thakur & A.M. Haritha.

April 20, 2026

About this episode

The episode features a conversation about decolonization and personal roots between Fiza Zali and Dr Sarah Wijesinghe.

In this week's episode, we listen to part two of Fiza's conversation with Dr Sarah Wijesinghe. Sarah is a senior lecturer at Sunway University, Malaysia, with expertise in critical tourism, decolonization, and social equity. The conversation was recorded in an open air cafe in Kuala Lumpur, in the midst of Ramadan. As we shared about our roots - our origins, our childhood memories, and traced our routes that led us to this journey of decolonisation, you can hear the general cacophony of daily life. Having now returned to unceded Indigenous lands here, listening to the sounds of my own homeland has been a soothing balm, and the beautiful tapestry Sarah and I weaved together through this conversation reminds me of what bell hooks wrote in her book ‘All About Love’, that “rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion." While we never really arrived at any grand conclusions, I hope the explorations of possibilities, the journey of tracing how systems affect us will fuel fellow listeners to keep resisting, and to keep finding people to take up space with. Bookstore: Gerak BudayaSong: Manike Mage Hithe by Yohani & SatheeshanMentioned on the show…

People in this episode

Host: Fiza Zali

Guest: Dr Sarah Wijesinghe

Topics covered

  • language
  • decolonization
  • social equity
  • critical tourism
  • cultural roots

Keywords

  • decolonization
  • language
  • social equity
  • cultural roots
  • Ramadan

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Sunway University, Gerak Budaya

Products: Dukkana, Manike Mage Hithe

Books & works: All About Love

Places: Kuala Lumpur, unceded Indigenous lands

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