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Critique and Transcendence of the Dependent Knowledge System in the Postcolonial Era

Mian Zhang

New Exploration of Ideology and Politics / 2026,8(3): 342-350 / 2026-07-30 43 47

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• Information:

  China Fire and Rescue Institute, Beijing, China

• Keywords:
  Postcolonial Era; Dependency; Knowledge System; Developing Countries; Subjectivity
• Abstract: Knowledge systems are not purely cognitive constructs but products of social relations deeply embedded in specific historical conditions and power structures. Since the advent of modernity, Western nations have established global dominance by virtue of their early advantages in modernization. Through systematic knowledge production and institutionalized dissemination, they have refashioned their own particular experiences into ostensibly universal knowledge, thereby engendering a global knowledge configuration centered on the West and relegating non‑Western societies to the periphery. This system, concomitant with capitalist expansion, has been continuously transplanted to developing countries, where it has engendered a profound dependence on Western‑centric paradigms in agenda‑setting, research methodologies, and evaluative criteria. The formation of this dependent knowledge structure is rooted in a triple logic: historically, colonial and academic hegemony has reduced the non‑West to the status of backward specimens, legitimizing a universalist discourse; structurally, the unequal global division of labor has crystallized into a hierarchical “center–periphery” system of knowledge production, in which the unidirectional flow of cognition reinforces academic dependency; and cognitively, the absence of subjectivity in developing countries results in passive acceptance of Western paradigms and the erosion of endogenous critical capacity. To transcend this unequal knowledge system, it is imperative, first, to consolidate the material foundation for knowledge innovation through economic self‑reliance; second, to stimulate original theoretical vitality by integrating subjectivity with practicality; and third, to achieve mutual learning among civilizations through the dialectical synthesis of local perspectives and global vision. Only in this way can we construct an autonomous knowledge system that is both explanatory and leading, and realize cultural self‑awareness through intellectual independence.
• DOI: 10.35534/neip.0803031 (registering DOI)
• Cite: Zhang, M. (2026). Critique and Transcendence of the Dependent Knowledge System in the Postcolonial Era. New Exploration of Ideology and Politics, 8(3), 342–350.