Anthropocene - A term used to describe an epoch in which humans have had a major influence over Earth systems, to the extent of becoming a geological force. It signals an end of the Holocene, and indicates that humans are the primary reason for this shift (Grinevald, Crutzen and McNeill, 2011)

Colonialism - A policy of extending territorial control to control over people and resources, for the benefit and profit of the colonisers

Coloniality - Conceptualised by Latin American thinkers, including Anibal Quijano and Walter Mignolo to critique Eurocentric models of knowledge and describe how the power structures generated through colonialism persist today. Coloniality functions through the creation of systems of racialised hierarchies, eurocentric systems of knowledge, and cultural systems which naturalise colonialism, making it seem inevitable. (See audio recordings of lectures on Modernity/Coloniality by Ansari; explainer on the Coloniality of Power) 

Colonisation - The act of appropriating or settling land

Discourse -  The way knowledge, events, behaviour, and societal relationships are explained and understood, including associated assumptions. These ideas and practices that we communicate produce meaning, constitute identities, and influence the possibilities of certain outcomes. Rather than seeing language as reflecting the world, theories of discourse suggest that reality is produced through our modes of representation (Campbell, 2010).  For example, the anti-immigrant discourse in some media outlets frame immigrants as “criminal”, “unpatriotic”, “ungrateful” etc., thus perpetuating undesirable worldviews of immigrants among readers. Another example would be the sustainable consumption/“green lifestyle” discourse, that individual actions and responsibility will help resolve climate change/sustainability crisis (Diaconeasa et al., 2021).

Epistemic violence - This is a term coined by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in Can the Subaltern Speak? It refers to the ways in which people are constituted as ‘other’  as part of the colonial project. Similarly, Boaventura de Sousa Santos speaks of ‘epistemicide’ which refers to the destruction of knowledge and ways of knowing as a tool of colonisation. Both terms are used to theorise coloniality. 

Global North -  The Global North refers to economically wealthier countries that tend to be former colonisers or have large European settler populations. It is used in contrast to the Global South, and is not a strictly geographical concept, but rather refers to places and people that are connected via pathways of transnational capital and networks of political and economic elites (Nagar, 2010). 

Global South - The Global South emerged as a term to replace ‘Third World’ or ‘under-developed’ when referring to countries that are less affluent and typically former colonies. It generally refers to Latin American, African and Asian countries. Coined in the 1970s, it was seen as a more neutral term than ‘Third World’, but Global South scholars have developed a deterritorial understanding of the term to include all people subjugated through global capitalism (Garland Mahler, undated). 

Ontology and epistemology - Ontology is the study of being. It is about what exists in the world that we can produce knowledge about. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It is about how we create knowledge. Epistemology and ontology are closely linked (Moon and Blackman, 2014)

Positionality - The fact that a researcher’s identity affects the kinds of questions that they ask, and how they analyse and interpret data. Approaches to positionality have changed over time, moving from making one own’s positionality transparent and showing an understanding of how this is implicated in research, to questions of how privilege is used to share knowledge and reshape relationships (Pratt, 2010)