The search for ecologies of knowledge in the encounter with African epistemicide in South African education (original) (raw)

Abstract

this article discusses the manufactured absence of African epistemologies, that we refer to as 'epistemicide', in formal education in Africa. the exemplifying case for our argument is the western hegemonic positioning of university and school-based knowledge in south African education during the past 20 years. This is taken up in the first half of the article where we illustrate how this (westernised) knowledge form is instantiated in the education body politik. the

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

References (30)

  1. Andreotti, V. 2011. Engaging the (geo)political economy of knowledge construction: Towards decoloniality and diversality in global citizenship education. Globalization, Societies and Education Journal 9(3-4): 381-397.
  2. Brock-Utne, B. 2000. Whose education for all? The recolonization of the African mind. New York: Falmer Press.
  3. Cross, M. 1986. A historical review of education in South Africa: Towards an assessment. Comparative Education 22(3): 185-200.
  4. Daza, S. 2013. Putting Spivakian theorizing to work: Decolonizing neoliberal scientism in education. Educational Theory 63(6): 601-619.
  5. Department of Education. 1995. White Paper on Education and Training: First Steps in the Developing a New System. Pretoria: DoE.
  6. Department of Education. 1997. Outcomes-Based Education in South Africa. Pretoria: DoE. DoE see Department of Education.
  7. Fataar, A. 2006. Policy networks in recalibrated discursive terrain: School curriculum policy and politics in South Africa. Journal of Education Policy 21(6): 641-659.
  8. Fataar, A. 2011. Education policy development in South Africa's democratic transition, 1994- 1997. Stellenbosch: Sun Media.
  9. Gulson, K. and A. Fataar. 2011. Neoliberal governmentality, schooling, and the city: Conceptual and empirical notes on and from the global South. Discourse 32(2): 269-283.
  10. Guthrie, G. 2013. Prevalence of the formalistic paradigm in African schools. Southern African Review of Education 19(1): 121-139.
  11. Kumashiro, K. 2000. Toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. Review of Educational Research 70(1): 25-53.
  12. Kumashiro, K. 2008 The seduction of common sense: How the right has framed the debate on America's schools. New York: Teachers' College Press.
  13. Maton, K. 2000. Recovering pedagogic discourse: A Bernsteinian approach to the sociology of educational knowledge. Linguistics and Education 11(1): 79-98.
  14. Mbembé, A. 2001. On the postcolony. Berkeley, CA University of California Press.
  15. Mignolo, W. 2009. Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and decolonial freedom. Theory, Culture and Society 26(7): 159-181.
  16. Moll, L., C. Amanti, D. Neff and N. Gonzalez. 1992. Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice 31(2): 132-141.
  17. Odora Hoppers, C. 2001. Indigenous knowledge systems and academic institutions in South Africa. Perspectives in Education 19(1): 73-85.
  18. Odora Hoppers, C. 2009. Education, culture and society in a globalizing world: Implications for comparative and international education. Compare 39(5): 601-614.
  19. Odora Hoppers, C. 2013. Keynote address: Knowledge and cognitive atonement. Presented at the inaugural conference of the South African Education Research Association, Limpopo, January 2013.
  20. Ramose, M. 2003. Transforming education in South Africa: paradigm shift or change? South African Journal of Higher Education 17(3): 137-143.
  21. Rhee, J. 2013. The neoliberal racial project: The tiger mother and governmentality. Educational Theory 63(6): 561-580.
  22. Santos, B. 2007. Beyond abyssal thinking. http://www.eurozone.com (accessed 23 March 2014).
  23. Santos, B. 2009. A non-occidentalist West? Learned ignorance and an ecology of knowledge. Theory, Culture and Society 26(6): 103-125.
  24. Santos, B. 2014. Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Boulder, CO Paradigm.
  25. Spivak, G. C. 1999. A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. xii, 112-197. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  26. Subreenduth, S. 2006. 'Why, why are we not even allowed ...?' A de/colonizing narrative of complicity and resistance in post/apartheid South Africa. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 19(5): 617-638.
  27. Subreenduth, S. 2013a. Theorizing social justice ambiguities in an era of neoliberalism: The case of postapartheid South Africa. Educational Theory 63(6): 581-600.
  28. Subreenduth, S. 2013b. Insidious colonialism in post-apartheid education: Interplay of black teacher narratives, educational policy and textbook analysis. Qualitative Research in Education 2(3): 213-241.
  29. Tuhiwai Smith, L.1999. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books Ltd.
  30. Visvanathan, S. 2009. The search for cognitive justice. Seminar May 2009: 597. http://www.india- seminar.com/2009/597/597_shiv_visvanathan.htm (accessed on 23 March 2014).