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Indigenizing the school curriculum the case of the African university
Abstract
This chapter might have been titled the African academy since the issues I speak about could very well apply to schools, colleges, and universities in Africa. Let me stick with the university, though it is important for the reader to work with the interplay of the schools, colleges, and universities in thinking about what the academy actually is. © 2014 SensePublishers-Rotterdam, The Netherlands. All rights reserved.
... The concept of indigeneity or indigenousness carries with it a sense of belonging to a place [5]. This view concurs with the contention that indigeneity is a process that asserts that land and place-based knowledge are key to understanding oneself [6]. This indigenousness as originating from the local consciousness and long-term occupancy of a place and develops skills that are embedded in the culture of a given location or society [7]. ...
... In agreement, the idea of indigeneity is about indigenous knowing; it is the knowing of bodies in relation to the spaces and places in which people are inseparably interconnected. In these interconnections, indigeneity emphasizes context [6]. In this paper, indigeneity refers to the collective engagement of indigenous communities as active knowers. ...
... In relation to the community practices regarding taboos, VaMadhlovu (not her real name) commented: "If we have mushrooms which as a gatherer you are not supposed to gather before thanking the Spirits for their generosity; and if you find Mopani caterpillars, they were not supposed to be cooked in a closed "hadyana" (cooking pot for side dish) for the spirits of the forest to continue providing." As knowledge is about wholeness and interconnection, the elders related their knowledge production to both the tangible and spiritual realm as well [6]. In the traditional Shona societies, there is an association between the spirits and the land is expressed in the tradition of "chisi" (days sacred to the spirits, on which people should not work the soil in any way). ...
Research in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe included, focusing on indigenous knowledge (IK) and food preservation practices have increased markedly over the past two decades. Some research focus on IK and the role of gender. It does not, however, consider specifically the role played by traditional values in indigenous food storage and preservation techniques. This paper explores a rural community’s IK and how this contributes to their post-harvest strategies used in Murambwi locality in Chivi, Zimbabwe. This locality has a dry ecology and indigenous people in the area have for centuries managed to preserve their food using indigenous knowledge. Sixteen community elders were interviewed through open discussions. The elders stressed the importance of collective responsibility in their IK of food preservation in communities, with reference to large and small grains and seasonal and perishable foods. Also, the elders displayed a collective sense of belonging, as manifested in their use of collective pronouns when referring to their homes and the land, ownership of resources, working together, close family relationships, and respect for sacred places. Relationships were at the center of the community, and they manifested through the emphasis on sharing, caring, respect, and common good.
... In Africa, the quest for sustainable development necessarily engages a consideration of the different forms of knowledge available, given the rich and varied patterns of beliefs, behaviour, and values that permeate the continent and have persisted despite the epistemic violence associated with colonial encounters (Awuah-Nyamekye, 2015;Mawere, 2014). As Dei (2014) asserted, constructions of education and development in Africa should first start with what African people and communities know. This know-how, often conceived of as Indigenous knowledges, practices, and adaptations, brings together a localized understanding of the ecological, social, political, economic, and historical environmentwhat Mawere (2014) referred to as African scienceand are increasingly being engaged in education, both formally and informally, particularly in South Africa (Breidlid, 2009). ...
... Taking up this call, researchers and practitioners alike, have begun a re-envisioning of the relationship between universities and communities in Africa. Dei (2014) conceived of the university as an African Academy in which academic excellence is context-specific, anti-colonial (see also Dei, 2013), community engaged through reflexivity, and, most importantly, epistemically Indigenous. It can be maintained that 'such Indigenous knowledges take the learner to history, culture, tradition, past, and identity as both contested, concrete, and meaningful to how we come to de-colonize the school/university curriculum and create social and academic excellence ' (2014, 165). ...
... This is not unsurprising if we position this response within the discourse on epistemic othering discussed in the conceptual framework. Furthermore, as Dei (2014) writes, '[t]he African university is a colonial satellite of the Western academy' (169); African academics are often educated abroad, where disciplinary biases are rewarded and reinforced, and may thus act as carriers and promoters of Western institutional culture (Nyamnjoh, 2012)a culture that prioritizes and valorizes Mode 1 knowledge. ...
Universities have an integral role in the development of communities. This is underpinned by the notion that universities possess a social responsibility to be agents of change in relation to society's socioeconomic , political, and environmental issues. In Africa, the quest for sustainable development necessarily engages a consideration of the different forms of knowledge available. This is as a result of the rich and varied patterns of beliefs, behaviour, and values that permeate the continent and have persisted despite colonialism. In this paper, we assert that there is much to be gained from engaging Indigenous knowledge through scholarship and public responsibility. Through a qualitative case study design based on relational dialogues with academic researchers and university managers, we emphasize the attributes associated with constructing and acting upon Indigenous knowledge at one university in Zambia and the ways in which Indigenous knowledge can contribute to sustainable development through a community engagement remit. This work also seeks to centre African research and researchers in the discourse on higher education in Africa.
... Wa Thiong'o (1994) conceptualizes the western educational system as a racial space with a hierarchical structure, which promotes an ideological apartheid with the university being its apex. Dei (2014) states that curriculum formally and informally negates and omits Africans roots, and that the decolonization process should start with a will to explore indigenous knowledge. For Dei (2014) a possible solution is to support indigenous knowledge in formal education systems from school to universities, as for instance, the creation of research centres in indigenous knowledge and African languages. ...
... In the indigenous argumentative line, these scholars highlight how indigenous knowledge has been appropriated by western science without being recognized as the property of indigenous knowledge (Smith, 1999). For this group of scholars, the inclusion of indigenous knowledge is a gain per se, due to the limitations of western science in recognizing its ontological, epistemological, political and spiritual blindness (Dei, 2014). Indigenous knowledge is intrinsically valuable in its powerful critique of politics of knowledge and how 'Cartesian-Newtonian epistemological foundationalism' (Semali & Kincheloe, 2002:17) came to provide a unique truth, excluding other realities and knowledge systems. ...
... On one hand, there can be found a strand coming from postcolonial thinking generally from the global South, which in its more radical perspective proposes constructing methodologies and research processes from an indigenous perspective, providing a particular To provide a better account of these typologies, their supporters and perspectives, in the African strands, the debates focus on designing and rethinking inquiry under local cultures, values, beliefs and worldviews. For instance, Dei (2014) proposes indigenous research, which uses specific methodologies that are African-centered; it is a kind of indigenous African research. Shizha (2014) exposes the usefulness of knowledge created by indigenous traditional research in helping people in South Africa and Botswana where western healthcare is too expensive and not affordable. ...
... 203). Dei (2014) similarly asserts that the African university should be contextually situated, reflexive, and epistemically Indigenous. Epistemological Indigeneity is an epistemic system that takes 'the learner to history, culture, tradition, past, and identity as both contested, concrete, and meaningful to how we come to decolonise the school/university curriculum and create social and academic excellence' (Dei, 2014, p. 165). ...
... There is an implied debate in epistemological discussions regarding the differences and similarities between what can be considered local Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge. Dei (2014) differentiated between localised Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge when he asserted that 'while local knowledge addresses knowledge localised in a place, the question of land, connections with spirit and metaphysical realms of existence of a place, is central to a conception of Indigenous' (pp. 166-167). ...
... For Nnaemeka (2004), it is within the decolonisation process that we can start to talk about participation and real democracy, when Indigenous views, Indigenous ontologies, knowledge and values can come to the forefront and be experienced. And for Dei (2014), this process can only start with the recognition of space, of knowing 'otherwise', of the political, emotional and spiritual aspects of knowledge. As she claims, 'Central to Indigenous research are concepts of spirituality, spiritual knowing, the interface of body, mind, soul, and spirit, and the nexus of society, culture, and nature' (Dei 2014, 52). ...
... For this reason, explains that Indigenous research is not the same as PAR, although Indigenous practitioners can use PAR as a methodology. It is, therefore, clear in this family that Indigenous research works towards the decolonisation of knowledge by widening the borders of the system, moving beyond a Eurocentric way of knowing (Dei 2014;Escobar 2007). However, the questions here is: can we operationalise decolonial research when we are not co-researching with Indigenous communities? ...
... For Nnaemeka (2004), it is within the decolonisation process that we can start to talk about participation and real democracy, when Indigenous views, Indigenous ontologies, knowledge and values can come to the forefront and be experienced. And for Dei (2014), this process can only start with the recognition of space, of knowing 'otherwise', of the political, emotional and spiritual aspects of knowledge. As she claims, 'Central to Indigenous research are concepts of spirituality, spiritual knowing, the interface of body, mind, soul, and spirit, and the nexus of society, culture, and nature' (Dei 2014, 52). ...
... For this reason, Schroeder (2014) explains that Indigenous research is not the same as PAR, although Indigenous practitioners can use PAR as a methodology. It is, therefore, clear in this family that Indigenous research works towards the decolonisation of knowledge by widening the borders of the system, moving beyond a Eurocentric way of knowing (Dei 2014;Escobar 2007). However, the questions here is: can we operationalise decolonial research when we are not co-researching with Indigenous communities? ...
... Formal engagement with Indigenous knowledge, a cumulative body of knowledge, practices, and beliefs, and values accumulated overtime within a geographic context and the material and nonmaterial realms of existence (Emeagwali, 2014), is a mechanism by which to 46 problematize the lay/expert dichotomy inherent to the academy (Winberg, 2006); decolonize the neoliberal mechanisms that reinforce this dichotomy (Dei, 2014;Kidman, 2020); and further underscore a social view of knowledge and knowledge construction (Ibhakewanlan & McGrath, 2015) that may serve sustainable development best (Mbah et al., 2021). This article sought to explore research, particularly community-based research (CBR) as a form of partnership between academics and community members (Ibhakewanlan & McGrath, 2015), as an avenue by which to develop relevant solutions to social problems by honoring the voices, artifacts, histories, languages, traditions, and knowledges of those Indigenous communities that buttress the university, thereby potentially contributing to the epistemic justice at the heart of sustainable development. ...
... By including Indigenous students in the research process, faculty researchers demonstrated, implicitly, the significance of student culture, identity, and language. Indigenous language is often not valued by education systems in Africa (Shizha, 2015), thereby contesting the identities many students come to the educational process with (Dei, 2014). Increasingly, at the postsecondary level, African scholars suggest that student involvement in the community may play a decolonizing role within the university, exposing students to and engaging their own forms of knowledge (Preece, 2016). ...
The most recent incarnation of development goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), call for a more intentional integration of higher education in development. Research can provide an avenue by which this done, developing relevant solutions to social problems. But who benefits from research, and whose knowledge counts in this process? Formal engagement with Indigenous knowledge, honoring the voices, artifacts, histories, traditions, and knowledges of those Indigenous communities that buttress the university can potentially contribute to both the social and environmental justice at the heart of sustainable development. Our research was focused on how African academics at two public universities and community members in The Gambia and Zambia 44 constructed the role of Indigenous knowledge within their community-based research activities. We highlight the specific epistemic strategies academic researchers used to engage Indigenous communities and knowledge, the dilemmas faced in the field, and the connections made through research relationships to sustainable development.
... The proponents of research capacity-building projects argue that they aim to help African universities to deliver high-quality education and excellent research, and that this will automatically benefit local societies (Velho 2004;Winkel 2014). On the other hand, critics argue that the standards for quality and excellence are often set in the Global North, making African universities dependent on the standards of other countries with regard to what counts as good and relevant for society, instead of defining their own terms (Dei 2014;Hountondji 1995). ...
... This involves a focus on the idea that such universities need to 'catch up' with universities in the Global North instead of focusing on how to enhance education and knowledge production that makes sense in the local or national contexts concerned (Whyte and Whyte 2016). Dei (2014) suggests that we should think about excellence at African universities in terms of: 'the needs, aspirations, and knowledge systems of African peoples and, in particular, start from what African peoples and their communities know ' (2014, 165). ...
This essay explores transnational capacity building projects to highlight some of the structural and processual challenges in decolonizing institutional spaces and power structures. We offer a view from the Global North by drawing on our own experiences of such projects and argue that issues of coloniality in research capacity-building projects must be understood together with the concepts of dependency and universality of knowledge. Two examples are used to question who defines excellence and relevance at African universities. We conclude that many collaborative projects regard scientific knowledge and notions of excellence and standards as universal and therefore transferable without considering an African academic context. Moreover, the mobility of scholars leads to the mobility of knowledge and norms, which may emphasise the notion of universality. More research from the Global South is needed to illustrate how the paradoxes and dilemmas of international research collaboration and capacity building are experienced and understood.
... This means their teaching, learning and research are entrenched within Western theories and methods that are presented as neutral and universal. Shava and Nkopodi (2016) amongst other scholars such as George Dei (2014) and Gloria Emeagwali (2014) have pointed to the resilient and hegemonic role of 'Western' epistemologies in African higher education systems. While colonialism per se has ended, the power relations persist, which is the focus of this article: reflecting on issues of coloniality in present capacity building. ...
... Critics, on the other hand argue that the standards for quality and excellence are often set in the Global North and masqueraded as universal. Thereby African universities become dependent on what counts as good and relevant for society somewhere else, instead of setting their own terms (Dei 2014;Hountondji 1995). ...
This article studies issues of coloniality in so-called capacity-building projects between universities in Africa and Scandinavia. Even fifty years after independence, the African higher education landscape is a product of the colonial powers and subsequent uneven power relations, as argued by a number of researchers. The uneven geography and power of knowledge exist also between countries that were not in a direct colonial relationship, which the word coloniality implies. Based on interviews with stakeholders and on our own experiences of capacity-building projects, this article examines how such projects affect teaching, learning, curriculum, research methodology and issues of quality enhancement. We analyse the dilemmas and paradoxes involved in this type of international collaboration and conclude by offering ways to decolonise capacity-building projects.
... Hence, he can see the benefit of including local knowledge, but he has not been trained in how to do so. In this respect, the proponents of the Africanisation of curriculum discourse are right; when the hegemonic knowledge is masqueraded as universal it is difficult to deconstruct it, and African schools do not provide students with the tools for validating their own knowledge systems (Dei, 2014). Yet, Mbow is careful not to dismiss the universal aspect of academia. ...
... I have not changed anything about my work style in my new job or in my international role despite my growing responsibilities. This is no surprise, given that the curriculum is a social construction of what it means to be an educated person (Dei, 2014) and the curriculum, which Mbow has been exposed to, has indeed been a Western curriculum. ...
Higher education has recently been recognised as a key driver for societal growth in the Global South and capacity building of African universities is now widely included in donor policies. The question is: How do capacity-building projects affect African universities, researchers and students? Universities and their scientific knowledges are often seen to have universal qualities; therefore, capacity building may appear straightforward. Higher Education and Capacity Building in Africa contests such universalistic notions. Inspired by ideas about the 'geography of scientific knowledge' it explores what role specific places and relationships have in knowledge production, and analyses how cultural experiences are included and excluded in teaching and research. Thus, the different chapters show how what constitutes legitimate scientific knowledge is negotiated and contested. In doing so, the chapters draw on discussions about the hegemony of Western thought in education and knowledge production. The authors' own experiences with higher education capacity building and knowledge production are discussed and used to contribute to the reflexive turn and rise of auto-ethnography. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and postgraduate students in education, development studies, African studies and human geography, as well as anthropology and history.
... In the literature, reflection is considered essential when addressing social justice issues and learning how to tap into transformative potential (Gorski & Dalton, 2020;Mezirow, 1978;Mezirow, 1981). Reflexivity, a qualitative research method that adds structure, depth, and rigor to personal reflections, is a common and crucial practice among researchers, as well as in certain design and engineering areas, to examine, and take steps to mitigate, how our personal beliefs can bias our research (Schön, 1983;Dei, 2014). Thus, for engineering educators, especially for those with formal training in engineering, reflexivity is an important skill to develop for interrogating how personal beliefs can unduly drive or restrain the building of competencies needed to integrate social justice into engineering education. ...
As graduate students, we have witnessed and experienced firsthand how engineering education, due to engineering culture, can perpetuate harm and enhance systemic oppression and inequality in society. Documenting our efforts to counteract this status-quo, we share our individual and collective experience working to center social justice in engineering education. Using collaborative autoethnography, we qualitatively explore, through self-reflection, how we sought to integrate social justice into engineering education and developed a praxis of engineering social justice. Our group’s collaboratively developed praxis of engineering social justice seeks to overcome institutional and individual barriers to an integration of social justice in engineering practice by 1) fostering a reflexive practice through values and positionality, 2) engineering space for inclusive collaboration, and 3) seeing justice as a necessary lens for engineering education. Through this analysis of our personal experience, we hope to motivate and challenge readers to develop a praxis of engineering social justice that will inform their actions in this space.
... The notion of putting pressure on the disciplines as we have discussed above aligns to some of the key aspects that George Dei (2014) refers to as the starting point of decolonising the African curriculum. Dei's concepts of multicentricity, indigeneity and reflexivity have been useful for us in reflecting on how our practice of community engaged learning can offer a positive contribution to the conversation of reaching social justice in higher education. ...
... In the literature, reflection is considered essential when addressing social justice issues and learning how to tap into transformative potential (Gorski & Dalton, 2020;Mezirow, 1978;Mezirow, 1981). Reflexivity, a qualitative research method that adds structure, depth, and rigor to personal reflections, is a common and crucial practice among researchers, as well as in certain design and engineering areas, to examine, and take steps to mitigate, how our personal beliefs can bias our research (Schön, 1983;Dei, 2014). Thus, for engineering educators, especially for those with formal training in engineering, reflexivity is an important skill to develop for interrogating how personal beliefs can unduly drive or restrain the building of competencies needed to integrate social justice into engineering education. ...
As graduate students, we have witnessed and experienced firsthand how engineering education, due to engineering culture, can perpetuate harm and enhance systemic oppression and inequality in society. Documenting our efforts to counteract this status-quo, we share our individual and collective experience working to center social justice in engineering education. Using collaborative autoethnography, we qualitatively explore, through self-reflection, how we sought to integrate social justice into engineering education and developed a praxis of engineering social justice. Our group's collaboratively developed praxis of engineering social justice seeks to overcome institutional and individual barriers to an integration of social justice in engineering practice by 1) fostering a reflexive practice through values and positionality, 2) engineering space for inclusive collaboration, and 3) seeing justice as a necessary lens for engineering education. Through this analysis of our personal experience, we hope to motivate and challenge readers to develop a praxis of engineering social justice that will inform their actions in this space.
... However, the recent defeat of the former president who was a self-proclaimed traditional healer could have resulted in the university members' cautious engagement with Indigenous knowledge in their practice. Hence, as discussed earlier, there is a need to create spaces for IKSs in universities to increase awareness of their value, unravel the systematic power relations and decentre Western knowledge (Dei, 2014;de Sousa Santos, 2014). IKSs' incorporation in academia could be achieved through collective support and recognition of research with local communities that builds relationships and conceives shared ideas. ...
While the possibility of a university fostering sustainable development is present in the extant literature and policy documents, the idea still warrants further consideration. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the nature and outcomes of the university’s engagement with Indigenous communities and perceptions of Indigenous knowledge systems in both academic and non-academic activities, and what might be required to foster the university’s contributions towards sustainable development.
A qualitative case study of the only public university in The Gambia was conducted, including non-university actors. Interviews and focus group discussion methods were used, and these enabled close collaboration between researchers and participants, and the latter were empowered to describe their perceptions of reality.
Three major sets of findings emerged from the analysis of the transcripts from interviews and focus group discussions with the university and community members. These are the limited nature of and outcomes from university–community engagement, the sustainable outcomes of Indigenous practices and ideas for Indigenising university engagement for sustainable development.
Particular implications of the study that underpins this paper can be underscored; these include: a contribution to the literature on ways of connecting Indigenous communities with universities, and to a conceptualisation of the Indigenised university; a provision of insights into the connectivity between university community engagement, Indigenous knowledge systems and sustainable development; the creation of a context for subsequent studies on practical steps that universities might take in the direction of epistemic justice and sustainable development for all; and heightening the intractability of theoretical and philosophical issues of epistemology, knowledge ecology and epistemological justice, as they reveal themselves in practice, in complex situations.
Matters of the university reaching out to Indigenous peoples have yet to find their way into conceptualisations of the university for sustainable development. This paper addresses this gap in the existing literature by advancing possibilities for the Indigenised university for sustainable development to emerge.
... The poem captures the anxiety of an academic who fears that their material for study may not be deemed relevant enough to secure a promotion. It participates in ongoing debate about the indigenization of knowledge, specifically within the university (Dei, 2014). It attacks an academy filled with professors who value Western literature. ...
In The Wretched of the Earth (1963), Frantz Fanon holds an optimistic view of the intellectual in the colony, as one who plays a key role in confronting the colonial administrators and addressing them on level intellectual turf. Long after African countries have gained independence, university campuses continue to sprout and grow on the continent. The intellectual finds their position changed. Now, intellectuals are under scrutiny more than ever, pressed to illustrate their relevance to the continent, to indicate how their expertise is not limited to the professing of theory in university corridors. The discourse has been ongoing in various disciplines. This essay examines the area of poetry, arguing that this domain illustrates the continent’s disillusionment with the place of the African intellectual in relation to their immediate world and indigenous knowledge production within it. In poetry, we find insightful critiques of as well as recommendations for the role of the African intellectual. Through an exploration of several poems that touch on the academy and the intellectual, the essay illustrates how these poems fit into the ongoing discourse about the indigenization of knowledge vis-à-vis the pedagogy imported from the West.
... To achieve that, there is need for greater use of participatory research methodologies that involve local communities, both as participants and knowledge holders, taking into consideration cultures, beliefs and values (Dei 2014). To this author, decolonisation should not only promote curriculum changes, but also consider the Eurocentric onto-epistemology of higher education institutions. ...
During and soon after the #feesmustfall and decolonisation student protests in South Africa, the decolonisation topic invaded the academic world in the country. There seems to exist a heterogeneity of viewpoints regarding what decolonising higher education entails. A search for systematic reviews on this topic did not yield any results. Such reviews can reveal what we currently know, what we do not know, and guide the knowledge production process going forward. This article analyses published research articles on decolonising higher education in South Africa through the lenses of soft reform, radical reform and "beyond-reform". Findings show that some papers dwell on decolonising isolated aspects of the university such as a programme or qualification, some on decolonising the entire university curriculum, and others on transforming the entire university. The article concludes that seeking to decolonise isolated aspects of the university constitute sub-soft reform strategies which leave the colonial pillars intact and therefore not contributing significantly to the decolonial project. Works that seek to decolonise the entire university curriculum are moving in the right direction towards radical reform, however, the article argues that to dismantle the colonial character of the present university requires the struggle to stretch beyond that. The South African university has a double-barrelled role to decolonise itself and to inform the societal decolonial project.
... In this limiting dimension, education has a fundamental task, because in order not to be distorted sooner or later it opposes to these constraints, even if only passively. In this way it contributes to an inevitable, albeit belated, process of change, of democratization, in a local and then general key, starting from indigenous and local instances Sefa Dei, 2014;Higgs, 2012;Assié-Lumumba , 2005;Wiredu, 2005;Bell, 2002). See, in this regard, the later case of student protests in South Africa. ...
This book is a collection of different contributions regarding the Education Systems. It does not concern a specific national Education System or a specific aspect. In this first edition the authors gives two different contributions. The first one regards the state of Education in Africa and describes the approaches and the Philosophy of Education in the Continent. The second regards the understanding of the organizations and what kind of organization can work in educational institutions.
Regarding the Education Systems in Africa we talk about a “Pedagogy and Andragogy of relationships”. The relationships are really important in the african cultures and this approach can give suggestions to Western Education. While Western Education is more based on the individuals. In Africa an individual exists only because his relationships with his Community. He belongs to a Community and the Community belongs to him. This is part of the african philosophy.
Regarding the understanding of organization structure we review the different approaches and discuss how these can work in and educational environment. This is useful for the school management, because a school is an organization that is devoted to improve the knowledge and to help the students to develop new interests and competencies. So that, only some kinds of organization can work to reach that aim.
... This is a conscious attempt to enhance African-centred interpretation of history in ways that counteract Eurocentric interpretations that had been essentialised in previous syllabi. This also constitutes a critical acknowledgement that curriculum and history learning are about values, ideas, practices, identities, and how knowledge production is linked to identities, power relations, and pedagogy (Dei 2014). ...
This chapter theorises the politics of knowledge production in order to understand the ways in which Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) could be framed as bases for promoting transformative classroom practices in Zimbabwe. Doing so is necessary as the school curricula of many education systems in postcolonial Africa remain subservient to the Western European epistemology. The trope, transformative uncolonial learning, is employed in order to re-imagine an ethical pedagogy that could result in transformative classroom practices. The argument developed is that history and dance, as implicated in the politics of the black body, could be re-framed as the basis of ethical classroom practices. To achieve this, teachers need to embrace productive pedagogies that promote pluriversality of knowledges as valid and legitimate school knowledge.
... Otherwise, before this, Ethiopian education focused on the Bible, Astronomy, and Philosophy. The embedded Indigenous Knowledge Systems in traditional education were not limited to the material aspects but included regular communication with the spiritual and non-spiritual, the material world of existence (Dei, 2014). In 1908, Ethiopia witnessed the first involvement of Western experts who developed the curriculum and fund for education. ...
... As I noted in the methodology, language is an important marker of cultural identity and wellbeing. In remote Australian contexts, as in colonised contexts more generally, it is possibly an indicator of resistance to colonisation, assimilation and acculturation (Dei 2014;Correa 2017;García and Wei 2015;Carter and Aulette 2009). It is also a marker of the lack of understanding that non-Indigenous people in general have of the Aboriginal world that Yunupingu writes about: ...
‘Education is the key’ is often used as a metaphor in remote Australian First Nations communities to indicate the importance of learning to achieve some measure of socio-economic advantage—education is seen as a vehicle for advancement. First Nations people have enthusiastically bought into education and training vehicle. High school completion data suggest that ‘gaps’ are closing. But the vehicle appears to be breaking down as it heads along the road towards jobs and economic participation.
This article presents an analysis of Census data to show trends in high school completion, employment and income. The data suggest growth in educational achievement. But a ‘break down’ of the data into non-Indigenous, First Nations Indigenous language speakers and First Nations English speakers shows little change in the economic fortunes of language speakers. In these latter findings a ‘new narrative’, built on QuantCrit propositions, takes shape and explains why the vehicle breaks down.
... In order to recognise indigenous people outside of state definitions, Corntassel (2012) advocates "resurgence" as a form of everyday decolonialism. In taking an ethnophilosophical approach (Mbiti, 1970;Oruka, 1990;Sefa Dei, 2014) to culture, where cultural artifacts such as music, poetry, oral sayings, customs etc. are brought to the fore as principal sites of community knowledge, Corntassel (2012) ascribes to them a subversive political agency: ...
This article makes a reading and reflection of a psychosocial intervention taken at Sunrise Community (SRC), a multi-ethnic indigenous settlement (12 indigenous groups and non-indigenous) located in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Through Community Social Psychology approach and Participatory Action Research, weekly visits were made for five months. Interviews, meetings, and informal conversations with leaders and residents were recorded in field diaries. Among the concerns residents had were: communication difficulties and the distancing of traditional practices that are associated with identity issues and historical inter-ethnic conflicts that mark relations in the SRC. As a result, the community held a Meeting of Ethnic Groups to gather members of SRC and other indigenous settlements for a day of celebration, to re-encounter traditional customs and practices. We acted as facilitator, favoring reflections on the roles, struggles and autonomy in the SRC and suggesting a horizontal model in the interactions. The organization and preparation of the celebration increased the interaction among the residents, although the different forms of participation and the ambiguity of identity markers. Reflections on postcolonialism and power relations have made it possible to weave important considerations into the findings, especially to reflect on the political dimension in claiming the rights of these groups.
... Per uscire da tale snaturamento della propria funzione, l'educazione potrebbe cominciare a fare opposizione, anche solo passivamente, contribuendo ad un'inevitabile, anche se tardivo, processo di cambiamento, di democratizzazione, in chiave locale e poi generale, partendo dalle istanze indigene e locali (Waghid, 2016;Sefa Dei, 2014;Higgs, 2012;Assié-Lumumba, 2005;Wiredu, 2005;Bell, 2002). A questo proposito, si vedrà più avanti il caso delle proteste studentesche e quello della Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sudafrica, che sono diventate un paradigma applicato da altre co-realtà del continente subsahariano (Waghid, 2016). ...
In Africa la costruzione di una prassi educativa autoctona è al centro del dibattito accademico e culturale. Se nel passato la trasmissione della cultura, e quindi la pratica educativa, è stata veicolata dalla tradizione orale, oggi si cerca di strutturare un sistema educativo che si fondi su un nuovo paradigma. In particolare nell’area sub-sahariana, pur nella diversità propria delle diverse nazioni, si punta ad un modello con basi comuni che si affranchi dalle influenze esterne ed assuma una dimensione originale. Non è operazione semplice, anche per il fatto che molti studiosi africani si sono formati in università estere o in istituti i cui programmi sono allineati a quelli europei o americani. Dal punto di vista operativo, sta prevalendo l’idea che l’utilizzo di strumenti e paradigmi estranei alla tradizione non comprometta l’identità africana, perché questi vengono “africanizzati” e diventano altro. In questo articolo si analizza tale processo di “africanizzazione” e le modalità con cui si cerca di rendere più accessibile e più giusta l’educazione nel continente. Nello specifico, si offre un’idea delle peculiarità del dibattito attuale, dell’orientamento e delle prospettive, nelle quali è centrale l’idea della filosofia africana di Ubuntu.
... Proprio in questa dimensione limitativa l'educazione svolge un compito fondamentale, perché per non essere snaturata prima o poi si oppone, anche solo passivamente. In questo modo contribuisce ad un'inevitabile, anche se tardivo, processo di cambiamento, di democratizzazione, in chiave locale e poi generale, partendo dalle istanze indigene e locali Sefa Dei, 2014;Higgs, 2012;Assié-Lumumba, 2005;Wiredu, 2005;Bell, 2002). Si veda, a questo proposito, più avanti il caso delle proteste studentesche e quello della Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sudafrica. ...
L’educazione consiste in un modo di pensare e di fare, in una teoria ed una prassi. In Africa, nell’area sub-sahariana, la costruzione di una prassi educativa autoctona è al centro del dibattito accademico e culturale.
Si cerca di strutturare un sistema educativo che si fondi su un nuovo paradigma e che si affranchi dalle influenze esterne per conquistare una dimensione originale.
Si è affermata l’idea che l’utilizzo di strumenti e paradigmi estranei alla tradizione non comprometta l’identità africana, perché questi vengono “africanizzati” e diventano altro .
In questo articolo si analizza questo processo di “africanizzazione”, si cerca di comprendere come la nuova pratica educativa possa offrire opportunità e rendere più accessibile e più giusta l’educazione nel continente.
... As we noted in the methodology, language is an important marker of cultural identity and wellbeing. In remote Australian contexts, as in colonised contexts more generally, it is possibly an indicator of resistance to colonisation, assimilation and acculturation (Carter & Aulette, 2009;Correa, 2017;Dei, 2014;García & Wei, 2015). It is also a marker of the lack of understanding that non-Indigenous people in general have of the Aboriginal world that Yunupingu writes about: ...
The 'education is the key' mantra is often used as a metaphor in remote First Nations communities to indicate the importance of learning to achieve some measure of socioeconomic advantage. It is fair to say that First Nations people have bought into education and training vehicle with enthusiasm. The Year 12 completion data coming out of Closing the Gap suggest that 'gaps' are closing. The rates of people holding certificate qualifications in remote communities are also increasing at a fast pace. But the vehicle appears to be breaking down as it heads along the road towards jobs and economic participation. This paper presents an analysis of Census data from 2001 to 2016 to show trends in qualification uptake, year 12 attainment, employment and income. The data, based on the 'very remote' regions of the ABS Remoteness Classification Structure, points to strong growth in educational achievement, consistent with Closing the Gap. But our 'break down' of the data into non-Indigenous, First Nations language speakers and First Nations English speakers shows little change in the economic fortunes of language speakers. The authors unpack why this may be and consider what might need to change for the vehicle to get back on the road again.
... This creative tension between the perception of individual and communal rights forms the bedrock of Ubuntu enquiry into social justice in educational terms (Dzobo 1992;Gyekye 1992). In order to explore these questions, Ubuntu uses two conceptual frameworks; firstly, an ethno-philosophy of education that examines the oral stories, poetry, songs, legends and proverbs as sources of knowledge that underpin the perception of educational experiences Oruka 1990;Sefa Dei 2014). Secondly, Ubuntu uses a critical philosophy of education that seeks to explore the justification of using heritage and culture (ethno-philosophy) as analytical lenses through which to examine social justice issues (Higgs 2012;Gyekye 1995Gyekye , 1997. ...
'This is a timely and important book that expertly combines personal narrative with nuanced theoretical analysis. Black Scholarly Activism between the Academy and Grassroots is a deeply engaging work that urges the reader to consider the possibilities and challenges facing academics who work towards social justice. Once picked up, this is a difficult book to put down: a must read.'
—Remi-Joseph Salisbury, Leeds Beckett University, UK
This book explores the 'invisible' impact whiteness has on the lived 'black' experience in the UK. Using education as a philosophical and ethical framework, the author interrogates the vision of Black Radicalism proposed by Kehinde Andrews, exploring its potential applicability to grassroots activism. Clennon uses an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to draw together his previous writings on 'blackness', in effect crystallising the links between commercial (urban) blackness, the pathological structures of whiteness and institutional control. Drawing inspiration from Robbie Shilliam's cosmologically related 'hinterlands' as an antidote to the nature of colonial (Eurocentric) epistemologies, the author uses the polemical chapters as gateways to theoretical discussion about the material effects of whiteness felt on the ground. This controversial and unflinching volume will be of interest to students and scholars of race studies, particularly within education, and the lived black experience.
Ornette D. Clennon is a Visiting Enterprise Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is also an activist and writer, working both at local and national levels, and in 2011 received the NCCPE Beacons New Partnerships Award for his enterprise and activism work.
... This creative tension between the perception of individual and communal rights forms the bedrock of Ubuntu enquiry into social justice in educational terms (Dzobo, 1992;Gyekye, 1992). In order to explore these questions, Ubuntu uses two conceptual frameworks; firstly, an ethno-philosophy of education that examines the oral stories, poetry, songs, legends and proverbs as sources of knowledge that underpin the perception of educational experiences (Mbiti, 1970;Oruka, 1990;Sefa Dei, 2014). Secondly, Ubuntu uses a critical philosophy of education that seeks to explore the justification of using heritage and culture (ethno-philosophy) as analytical lenses through which to examine social justice issues (Higgs, 2012;Gyekye, 1997;Gyekye, 1995). ...
In asking about the intrinsic purpose of both formal and informal education, Ornette D. Clennon discusses the need to challenge Eurocentric epistemologies by discussing Gurminder Bhambra’s concept of “connected histories” that challenges the field of historical sociology to take a less Eurocentric approach to espistemology and historiography. Clennon also looks at supplementary education as a potential site for an African Philosophy of Education, namely Ubuntu that by using a social justice based critical pedagogy, embodies elements of “connected histories” in its use of ethno-philosophy.
... It is obvious that "indigenous knowledge is about the representation of culture, history, local experiences, and the thing of land and socio-physical environments of communities" (Dei 2014). Hence, the knowledge which represents the culture of the given communities which the member of the group can easily understand, makes the learner build their interpersonal communication skill and enables them to fit in the society of which they are part. ...
Indigenizing school curricula is a vital instrument for developing indigenous
life skills in students. This is because indigenous knowledge
is rich in information built through experiences accumulated for a long
period of time. Indigenous knowledge helps to protect the world social
diversity that is going to be destroyed and contribute in building
the confidence that appreciates our situation in creating the pluralistic
world. In many of the developing countries, the indigenous knowledge
system was colonized and dominated by the colonial system of education.
And hence, there is a need for indigenizing school curricula using
indigenous people’s knowledge to build the life skills of students. The
incorporation of indigenous knowledge into school curricula helps to
build the life skill of the students. However, school curricula designed
in many parts of developing countries are promoting western values.
Indigenous knowledge is excluded and marginalized. Therefore, there
is a need for de-marginalizing indigenous knowledge and indigenizing
school curricula. The school curricula have to address diversity in order
for students to build their self-esteem from the knowledge generated
by the interaction with the natural environment in their local areas. Indigenous
knowledge is the primary source of the knowledge system that
students acquire and help them to build sets of life skills that improve
their livelihood.
Keywords: Indigenous knowledge, indigenizing, school curricula,
and life skills.
... It is through language that African culture is learned and transmitted. There must be a family/community and school interface that will facilitate the introduction of local/indigenous knowledge in schools to create learning sites of different and multiple knowledge (Dei 2014:168) [3] . ...
The main issue that this paper focused on is the restoration of Ethiopianism through indigenization of our system of education. One of the great mistake done by the successive regime in Ethiopia is the role they played in modernizing the system of education without considering the indigenous knowledge system. In the modernization process, they completely dismantled the indigenous system of knowledge from the school curriculum. The proper Ethiopian knowledge which Ethiopianism was built such as the cultural, Economic and social factors are marginalized. The Ethiopian 'self' those elements which the Ethiopians experienced in their culture, history, politics and communal life is gradually deteriorating. Their system of knowledge on which they started civilization and contributed to the world currently considered as traditional, inferior, superstitious, primitive and so on. Ethiopians are "the first civilized inhabitants of the Nile and Tigris, Euphrates valleys, where a dark-skinned people with short hair and prominent lips; and that they are referred to by some scholars as Cushites (Ethiopians), and as Hamites by others" were the source of civilization began but these civilized people who remain uncolonized currently colonized in the system of education and politics. These people are going back from the line of civilization to ethnic conflict in the 21 st century. This paper, therefore, discusses the need for indigenization in restoring Ethiopianism that is deteriorating on the bases of historical perspective and practical observation.
In this chapter, we will look at “traditional health knowledges” in UK African Diaspora grassroots communities. We will also discuss whether a Eurocentric view of health is compatible with a more Afrocentric framework of holistic health (i.e. the integration between mind, body and spirit). Using Ubuntu’s (see an African Philosophy to Education c.f. Waghid & Smeyers, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 44(S2), 6–20, 2012) ethno-philosophical framework (Emeagwali, Intersections Between Africa’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems and History. In G. Emeagwali, & G. Sefa Dei (Eds.), African Indigenous Knowledge and the Disciplines (pp. 1–19). Sense Publishers, 2014; Sefa Dei, Indigenizing the Curriculum: The Case of the African University. In G. Emeagwali, & G. Sefa Dei (Eds.), African Indigenous Knowledge and the Disciplines (pp. 165–180). Sense Publishers, 2014) and critical philosophy (Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme. Temple University Press, 1995; Dzobo, African Symbols and Proverbs as Sources of Knowledge. In K. Wiredu, & K. Gyekye (Eds.), Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies I (Vol. 1) (pp. 85–98). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1992) as starting points, we will attempt to excavate traditional epistemologies around health that revolve around pre-colonial ontologies of community. To do this, we will listen to the voices of our community members to glean nuggets of intergenerational cultural wisdoms about alternative models of health, as we examine the influence of the Black Church (both Caribbean-led and African-led) on health. Finally, we will look at how Church leaders can play a larger role in mediating access to the health market for their congregations in order to achieve better health outcomes.
In this chapter, we will track the early development of whiteness to its imperial stages. Using a conversation between the authors and commentaries with contributions from community partners, we will uncover the impact that whiteness’ historical patterns of behaviour has had on their lives. We believe that this needs to be fully acknowledged in order to really understand the daily experiences of African Diaspora health seekers and the (whiteness-induced) social stressors that ultimately lead to lower health outcomes. We will then briefly historically locate Bourdieu’s, (1977) social and cultural capitals in whiteness and its imperial patriarchal structures, with their effect on the ability of the African Diaspora health seeker to benefit equitably from the health market. Finally, we will examine Crenshaw’s (1991) intersectionality within the framework of imperial whiteness and explore its suitability as a sufficiently inclusive framework that can help us to understand the relationships between Black Masculinities and Black male health-seeking behaviours, alongside its use to examine the inequalities of health outcomes for Black women.
In this chapter, we will introduce our decolonial reading of whiteness as a lens through which to present the current landscape of Public Health for African Diaspora communities in the UK. The chapter will also identify the hidden factors for systemic failure for the African Diaspora health seeker and locate them within a “coloniality of whiteness”. To do this, we will introduce whiteness as an unethical framework (i.e. a distortion of Aristotelian human ethics) for social ordering that can be traced back to historical patterns of behaviour over the longue durée. We will also introduce the notion of the “grassroots Black organic intellectual” as being the conduit for such decolonial analyses of whiteness in the community, which will form a decolonial praxis that will be threaded throughout the volume.
This article is a study of a university vice chancellor (VC) and specifically the leadership qualities that articulate success. There is broad agreement across the higher education sector that good leadership is central to the performance of university vice chancellors (Cloete, Maassen, and Bailey 2015; Macfarlane 2012; Jansen 2017; Scott et al. 2010). University vice-chancellor’s performance are measured against at range of issues and include determining the institution’s strategic goals, academic standing and transformation agenda (Leibowitz 2012). To run a university there is need for university vice-chancellors to articulate particular skills, values and qualities that will enable them to achieve success in these wide-ranging and competing goals and agendas. In South Africa however with few exceptions (Swartz et al. 2019; Jansen 2017), fundamental questions remain about what these values and qualities are and they arise in university vice-chancellors own account of leadership. Although vice-chancellors occupy an eminent position in the country especially in the context of transforming higher education in the country (Cloete 2014), specific attention to the values and qualities that vice-chancellors articulate as vital for leadership has been understudied. This article is interested in the question: how do vice-chancellors shape leadership qualities are how do these arise? This question is explored empirically, through narrative enquiry by focusing on one vice-chancellor’s account of leadership qualities. Through a close-focus examination of the nuances associated with a university vice chancellor’s conceptualisation of leadership, this article provides insights into what qualities are relevant for effective leadership. As noted by Dewan and Myatt (2008) the successful performance of a leader is based on the question of which qualities are relevant for effective leadership. There remains a marginal consideration of university vice-chancellor’s perspectives on the issues of effective leadership and how they arise especially in the context of South Africa’s turbulent higher education environment.
Among the many pathways for decolonizing colonial education is the incorporation of Elders’ cultural knowledges into schools. Indigenous Elders are holders and teachers of Indigenous knowledges and teachings about Land, culture, identity, language and community history, spirituality and the relationality of all living and non-living things including the universe. As knowledge custodians and storytellers, Elders pass knowledge from generation to generation through their teachings and carry the history and spiritual values of the community, bridging past, present, and future. Elders’ cultural knowledges are seen as having a critical role to play in schools in closing the educational gap and making education and schooling more relevant to Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and other racialized students in their validation of Indigenous cultures within the school through an educational process that connects the learner with his/her culture, lived experience and environment.
The integration of Elders’ cultural knowledges in schools is anchored in anti-colonial and decolonial frames of reference as a counter-hegemonic subversive, oppositional, and resistant endeavor to reclaim Indigenous knowledges and ways of learning from the colonial stranglehold for the benefit of the black/Latinx and Indigenous learners who have historically been marginalized by Western colonial structures of education. Decoloniality and anti-colonial prisms act as strategic intellectual and political frames of reference for counter-visioning Western education and call into question, the dominant narrative of Western modernity. As well, it insists on the centrality of Indigenous epistemologies, spiritualities and spiritual ontologies and literacies in thinking through theory of knowledge and knowledge production to unsettle colonial structures, systems, and dynamics of education. It privileges the of interplay of Land and Indigenous knowledge production, to reclaim and center Indigenous ways of learning in schools.
Indigenous people in Canada, Africa and other colonial destinations have resisted colonial domination and hegemony in many different forms since the very beginning of the colonial encounter. Furthermore, they have not been passive consumers of Western education and have always resisted, and continue to resist, colonial education despite the pervasive brutality and violence of Western education. The involvement of Indigenous Elders in schools, delivering Land-based education, is just one example of contemporary resistance to on-going colonial education in Canada. Many examples of the decolonization of education, often through forms of Indigenous resurgence and the Indigenization of the curriculum, exist among Indigenous communities globally. Programs aimed at Indigenization foster epistemic pluralism and multicentricity in educational praxis, knowledge production and validation. The integration of Elders’ cultural knowledges as a decolonizing endeavour helps Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other racialized students achieve within a colonial context, and gives them the knowledge they need to question and potentially transform the education that they are receiving.
Like all other forms of resistance to colonial domination and hegemony, the integration of Indigenous Elders and their cultural knowledges into schools is not without challenges. Integration does not take place on neutral ground as the school is a contested colonial landscape peppered with colonizing ideologies that are often hostile to Indigenous Elders. Colonial formations and logics are fundamentally opposed to decolonizing approaches intrinsic to Indigenous resurgence and decolonization ideologies and practices, including efforts to Indigenize schools and schooling. The incorporation of Indigenous knowledges in schools requires de-centering colonial foundations of education and theories of knowledge production, power and privilege embedded in contemporary educational structures, as well as grappling with questions of complicity and Eurocentric seduction. Despite these challenges, Indigenous communities continue to challenge and resist colonial education and to insist on the right of their children to be educated in their own languages and within their own cultures.
In Western thought, Land is theorized almost exclusively through its physicality and its affordances without any epistemological or pedagogical significance for educational purposes. It is conceived of as a space that is empty and abstract, that is free, available, or un/occupied. However, in Indigenous philosophies and worldview, Land is a living entity and the source of Indigenous knowledges, pedagogies, cultures, languages and identities and includes the universe, all living and non-living entities and the spirit-world. Indigenous peoples see Land as a living entity, the source of life itself, such that there is no life without the Land. Land is seen as a manifestation of Spirit and as the source of all Indigenous knowledge, it is both teacher and pedagogy holding all Indigenous truths. Indigenous knowledge is generated from careful observation of the ecosystem and natural phenomena, observed by many people for millennia. For Indigenous people, Land, and spirit intertwine as sites of knowing to critically interrogate hegemonic knowledge systems and allow for knowledge pluralism and inclusion of new geographies of knowledge that center and reclaim Indigenous education and Elders’ cultural knowledges in schools.
Framed in the context of decoloniality, this study advocates for the embedding of African indigenous epistemologies into student development in university education in order to emancipate it from the pervasive Eurocentric hegemony. The thesis of this paper contends that student development in higher education has remained firmly anchored on Eurocentric ways of knowing at the expense of other epistemologies especially those from the Global South. Indigenous epistemologies are interiorized and marginalized. Efforts to Africanize the curriculum have largely been piecemeal and student development theory has continued to be underpinned by Eurocentric epistemology with a devastating impact on student identity and character development. This study employed the qualitative research paradigm in which three state universities in Zimbabwe were purposively selected as research sites. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with student affairs practitioners and were analysed qualitatively through coding of emerging themes and this was complimented by the use of the NVivo qualitative data analysis software. Results revealed that Eurocentrism is largely the dominant epistemology in student development while African indigenous epistemologies are marginalized, invisibilized and interiorized. The findings also exposed several challenges that are faced by student affairs practitioners with the major ones being; inadequate institutional funding, unavailability of Afrocentric literature on Student Development as well as well as lack of space on the timetable. The study recommended the inclusion of African indigenous epistemologies into student development through the adoption models that imbue cultural values and ways of knowing of indigenous people.
This chapter examines the discourse on the politics of epistemological production and validation while situating the African agency at the centre place. It analyses the trajectory of sustained epistemological tyranny on the African space vis-a-vis its attendant theoretical and philosophical rejoinder termed Afrocentricity. It also x-rays the argumentations on the plausibility of the idea of African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS). It concludes by drawing a nexus between the postulations of Afrocentric scholars and the proponents of AIKS.
This article expounds the colonial legacies of Brazil in the era of democratization, constitutionalism, human rights, and globalization, and the ramifications and implications for curriculum redesign and reconciliation. Using a decolonial approach to research, I analyze policy and curriculum documents from Brazil - including the document "Curricular framework for indigenous schools" (1998) and the National Common Curriculum Base (BNCC) (2018) - and contend that policy makers have favoured the peripheral inclusion of indigenous knowledges in curriculum. Citing research conducted in Brazil, I argue that this approach to curriculum design undermines reconciliation between non-indigenous peoples, indigenous communities, and the land, which is usually perceived as an alive sacred entity by indigenous communities. Finally, I deliberate about ways through which curricularists could centralize indigenous knowledge and comment on the contributions of comparative and international research to the (de)colonizing project.
This study investigated how international students were reflecting the learning environment and in particular, the physical and psychological dimensions of it. During the practical training in their homeland in Southern Africa area the student teachers used multiple learner-centered strategies, such as self-reporting, discussions in groups, learning cafés and teamwork. Based on the data, the trainees were managing these well. In addition, if their teaching methods were not working, they used meta-reflection strategies and critical thinking to find solutions for providing pupils better learning experiences. Regarding the physical learning environment, in their homeland schools, the trainees were reporting about the scarcity of materials, such as textbooks and furniture, but especially the technical devices, such as laptops, projectors or tablets. Some of the trainees reported finding replacement for this type of learning by using other than digital learning material, for instance crayons, posters or stones outside the classroom.
Decolonial rhetoric has enveloped the South African academic world advocating for cognitive justice. Debates have increased exponentially, highlighting the complexities of the theme and the diversity of positionalities towards a decolonial solution. Thus, the imperative responsibility to explore the debates and participate in the active networks towards a partial solution has become clear. Therefore, this article explores the decolonial literature. It introduces the complexities of the epistemological field and upholds a pluri-versity of approaches. In this university converted into a pluri-versity, practices should be diverse in form and content, including knowledge systems historically excluded, but equally preserve those that, although imposed, should still be present for an ecology of knowledges. To do so, I argue that despite the use of African or indigenous methodologies being used as a way to decolonise research, we need to increase the use of participatory methodologies, in their diverse forms. Thus, diversifying our practices as researchers and combining them with traditional research practices is the only way to promote a pluriverse which is nurtured by diverse knowledge systems on our way towards decolonisation.
The academic landscape in higher education institutions (universities) in southern Africa (countries in SADC)) remains highly influenced by western epistemologies. This is despite the fact that these academic institutions are situated in independent states. The research and teaching activities in universities are entrenched within western theories and knowledge disciplines that are presented as neutral, universal and singular. The implication is that while we celebrate political independence we are still entrapped in continuing coloniality. This points to a need for reframing the curriculum to prioritise the interests of Africans. This chapter explores possible factors that contribute to the continued alienation of indigenous knowledges in southern African universities. It argues that in order to achieve the indigenisation of universities in Africa there is a need for a decolonial process to subvert and decentre western epistemologies by offering African Indigenous epistemologies and African-centred standpoints as alternatives in research and teaching processes in the academy.
On having been introduced to massive open online courses (MOOCs), we contrived to devise, develop and implement an online course that would be both relevant and responsive to our pedagogy, more specifically, teaching and learning encounters. As it happened, African philosophy of education became the central focus in relation to which we could situate our educational research interests. We chose the idea of an African philosophy of education premised on the following three considerations. First, we envisaged focusing on a MOOC that would attract students to other ways of knowing, doing and being. Put differently, we considered a MOOC on African philosophy of education because we endeavoured to bring to masses of students a pedagogic discourse which could foreground the African condition. Second, having been initiated into dominant Western discourses of thinking and acting, we thought it apposite to introduce a platform of learning (and teaching for that matter) that foregrounds less dominant discourses, which often have to endure caricature on the part of those who hold a view of education prejudiced towards Western studies. Third, our interest in African philosophy of education has been stimulated by a notion of ubuntu (human interconnectedness and co-existence) through which justice for all might be possible. It is, therefore, not surprising that we selected the figure of the late President Nelson Mandela of the first democratic South Africa as our backdrop to the publicity of the MOOC. As has been argued elsewhere, Mandela’s educational contribution is constituted by at least three aspects: an education for non-violence guided by deliberative engagement and compassionate and reconciliatory actions, exercising responsibility towards others and cultivating a reasoned community of thinking (Waghid 2014a: 4).
The academic landscape in higher education institutions (universities) in southern Africa (countries in SADC)) remains highly influenced by western epistemologies. This is despite the fact that these academic institutions are situated in independent states. The research and teaching activities in universities are entrenched within western theories and knowledge disciplines that are presented as neutral, universal and singular. The implication is that while we celebrate political independence we are still entrapped in continuing coloniality. This points to a need for reframing the curriculum to prioritise the interests of Africans. This chapter explores possible factors that contribute to the continued alienation of indigenous knowledges in southern African universities. It argues that in order to achieve the indigenisation of universities in Africa there is a need for a decolonial process to subvert and decentre western epistemologies by offering African Indigenous epistemologies and African-centred standpoints as alternatives in research and teaching processes in the academy.
This chapter focuses on the internationalization of curricula in higher education, addressing curricular flows of knowledge that are transnational, and the vehicles through which transnational knowledge circulates. An overview of some ways that higher education pedagogy has been internationalized is presented, including the spread of global citizenship curricula, the infusion of comparative and international content, and the proliferation of foreign language curricula. Arguments of critics who consider curriculum internationalization as neocolonial, Western processes are presented. The chapter shifts to examining transnational pedagogies through a spatial lens that views knowledge as a spatial practice mobilized by global flows and networks. Bhabha’s idea of the “third space” is evoked to investigate examples of curriculum internationalization that are not simply Western, but rather characterized by hybridity and complexity.
Incl. bibl., abstract In this paper, we draw on philosophy (particularly African philosophy) to analyse the call for an African university. The call for an African university may be viewed as a call that insists that all critical and transformative educators in Africa embrace an indigenous African worldview and root their nation's educational paradigms in an indigenous socio-cultural and epistemological framework. In this reflection, we give attention to two matters: (1) what is African? and (2) what is an African university? We comment on distinguishing features between a Eurocentric or western idea of a university, and an African sense of the role and function of the university in society, and then spell out the implications of these distinctions for higher education policy in South Africa.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, America finds itself on the brink of a new racial consciousness. The old, unquestioned confidence with which individuals can be classified (as embodied, for instance, in previous U.S. census categories) has been eroded. In its place are shifting paradigms and new norms for racial identity. Eva Marie Garroutte examines the changing processes of racial identification and their implications by looking specifically at the case of American Indians.
The word indigenous has been used to refer to specific groups of people defined by the criteria of ancestral territory, collective cultural configuration, and historical location in relation to the expansion of Europe. Since the 1980s, however, the term has evolved beyond its specific empirical reference. Combined with the term knowledge, it has come to signify a social science perspective as well as a philosophical and ideological position that rests on recognition of the role of knowledge in the power relations constituted by the expansion of Europe. This article outlines the evolution of this perspective and its relationship to applied anthropology. It argues that the perspective is based on a humanistic unease with the effect of westernization on indigenous peoples, and that this humanistic thinking has deep roots in applied anthropology. Recent studies that support the use of indigenous knowledge in planned social change (development) follow in this vein, and constitute a crique of aspects of Western knownedge. The paper concludes that applied anthropologists should pay greater attention to facilitating the praxis of indigenous autonomy.
Higher education the world over has now become part of the globalization process and can no longer be strictly viewed from a national context. The realities of internationalization of higher education and its attendant impacts on the sector is an urgent priority for higher education, especially in developing economies such as Africa. This paper analyses the complex process of internationalization, its manifestations and current developments as well as the main challenges it poses to higher education in Africa. It illustrates the peculiar historical and political contexts of African higher education, the diverse national, regional and international actors, dominant rationales, challenges, risks and their implications for policy. The paper argues that, Africa, just like other regions of the world, or even each country of the world, approaches internationalization in a way that reflects its history, culture and context and in a way consistent with its current needs, priorities and circumstances. While there are areas of dissimilarity between Africa and other world regions, relating to rationales, risks, challenges and even opportunities, internationalization is a worldwide phenomenon that may require increased regional and international cooperation accompanied with workable policies, strategies and ethical standards.Higher Education Policy (2009) 22, 263–281. doi:10.1057/hep.2009.8
This paper is an invitation critically to engage in the discussion of ‘Indigenous knowledges’ and the implication for academic decolonization. Among the issues raised are questions of the definition and operationalization of Indigenous knowledges and the challenges of pursuing such knowledge in the Western academy. The paper draws attention to some of the nuances, contradictions and contestations in affirming the place of Indigenous knowledges in the academy. It is pointed out that Indigenous knowledges do not ‘sit in pristine fashion’ outside of the effects of other knowledges. In particular, the paper brings new and complex readings to the term ‘Indigenous’, maintaining that different bodies of knowledge continually influence each other to show the dynamism of all knowledge systems. It is argued that when located in the Euro-American educational contexts, Indigenous knowledges can be fundamentally experientially based, non-universal, holistic and relational knowledges of ‘resistance’. In the discussion, the paper interrogates the notions of tradition, authenticity, orality and the assertion of Indigenous identity as crucial to the educational and political project of affirming Indigenous knowledges.
Brazilian social relations – their practices and their representations – are marked by a hyperconsciousness of race. Such hyperconsciousness, while symptomatic of how Brazilians classify and position themselves in the life world, is manifested by the often vehement negation of the importance of race. This negation forcefully suggests that race is neither an analytical and morally valid tool, nor plays a central role in determining Brazilian social hierarchies. The hyperconsciousness/negation of race dialectic allows us to understand how a system that is on the surface devoid of racial awareness is in reality deeply immersed in racialized understandings of the social world. To approach the hyperconsciousness/negation of race conundrum, I review pertinent Brazilian and US bibliography focusing on problems associated with the racial democracy myth; I utilize ethnographic data; and I interpret newspapers articles reporting on one of the many events of police corruption and brutality in Rio de Janeiro.
Incl. bibliographical references, biographical data on the authors