Epistemic Freedom in Africa is about the struggle for African people to think, theorize, interpret the world and write from where they are located, unencumbered by Eurocentrism. The imperial denial ...of common humanity to some human beings meant that in turn their knowledges and experiences lost their value, their epistemic virtue. Now, in the twenty-first century, descendants of enslaved, displaced, colonized, and racialized peoples have entered academies across the world, proclaiming loudly that they are human beings, their lives matter and they were born into valid and legitimate knowledge systems that are capable of helping humanity to transcend the current epistemic and systemic crises. Together, they are engaging in diverse struggles for cognitive justice, fighting against the epistemic line which haunts the twenty-first century.The renowned historian and decolonial theorist Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni offers a penetrating and well-argued case for centering Africa as a legitimate historical unit of analysis and epistemic site from which to interpret the world, whilst simultaneously making an equally strong argument for globalizing knowledge from Africa so as to attain ecologies of knowledges. This is a dual process of both deprovincializing Africa, and in turn provincializing Europe. The book highlights how the mental universe of Africa was invaded and colonized, the long-standing struggles for 'an African university', and the trajectories of contemporary decolonial movements such as Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall in South Africa. This landmark work underscores the fact that only once the problem of epistemic freedom has been addressed can Africa achieve political, cultural, economic and other freedoms.This groundbreaking new book is accessible to students and scholars across Education, History, Philosophy, Ethics, African Studies, Development Studies, Politics, International Relations, Sociology, Postcolonial Studies and the emerging field of Decolonial Studies.
This provocative book is anchored on the insurgent and resurgent spirit of decolonization in the twenty-first century. The author calls upon Africa to turn over a new leaf in the domains of politics, ...economy, and knowledge as it frees itself from imperial global designs and global coloniality.
With a focus on Africa and its Diaspora, the author calls for a radical turning over of a new leaf, predicated on decolonial turn and epistemic freedom. The key themes subjected to decolonial analysis include: (1) decolonization/decoloniality - articulating the meaning and contribution of the decolonial turn; (2) subjectivity/identity - examining the problem of Blackness (identity) as external and internal invention; (3) the Bandung spirit of decolonization as an embodiment of resistance and possibilities, development and self-improvement; (4) development and self-improvement - of African political economy, as entangled in the colonial matrix of power, and the African Renaissance, as weakened by undecolonized political and economic thought; and (5) knowledge - the role of African humanities in the struggle for epistemic freedom.
This groundbreaking volume opens the intellectual canvas on the challenges and possibilities of African futures. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of Politics and International Relations, Development, Sociology, African Studies, Black Studies, Education, History, Postcolonial Studies, and the emerging field of Decolonial Studies.
Global imperial designs, which have been in place since conquest by western powers, did not suddenly evaporate after decolonization. Global coloniality as a leitmotif of the empire became the order ...of the day, with its invisible technologies of subjugation continuing to reproduce Africa's subaltern position, a position characterized by perceived deficits ranging from a lack of civilization, a lack of writing and a lack of history to a lack of development, a lack of human rights and a lack of democracy. The author's sharply critical perspective reveals how this epistemology of alterity has kept Africa ensnared within colonial matrices of power, serving to justify external interventions in African affairs, including the interference with liberation struggles and disregard for African positions. Evaluating the quality of African responses and available options, the author opens up a new horizon that includes cognitive justice and new humanism.
What has been the contribution of African intellectuals to postcolonial and decolonial scholarship? This question arises because there is emphasis on privileging works of Diasporic scholars from the ...Middle East and South Asia for postcolonialism and Diasporic scholars from South America for decoloniality/decolonisation. This article contributes to the complex politics of knowledge in Africa through centring often-ignored contributions of African intellectuals to the decolonisation of knowledge and politics. Conceptually and theoretically, what is introduced are issues of how epistemology framed ontology, how the cognitive empire invaded the mental universe of Africans, and how the quest for epistemic freedom informs resurgent and insurgent decolonisation of the twenty-first century. Thus, the article performs four key tasks: (1) it explains how epistemology frames ontology as its entry into the topical politics of knowledge; (2) it introduces and defines the concepts of the cognitive empire and epistemic freedom as they enable a deeper understanding of the complex politics of knowledge; (3) it historicises African struggles for decolonisation as reflected in African decolonial scholarship and the quests for epistemic freedom; and (4) it makes sense of resurgent and insurgent decolonisation of the twenty-first century as embodied by the Rhodes Must Fall movements in South Africa.
Cet article s’intéresse au long tournant décolonial et à la manière dont il a pu troubler d’autres tournants qui ont touché les sciences humaines et sociales. Le tournant décolonial continue d’animer ...les luttes visant à libérer les études africaines des imbrications coloniales, des modèles impériaux mondiaux, du carcan des area studies et de l’actuelle économie mondiale du savoir. Cette approche permet non seulement de révéler d’invisibles dynamiques épicoloniales dans les études africaines, mais aussi les tensions internes, les ambiguïtés, les ambivalences et les contradictions qui existent dans le mouvement de réécriture de l’Afrique en tant que processus décolonial. En fin de compte, cet article présente un cadre décolonial façonné par la décolonisation renaissante et insurgée du xxi e siècle et fondé sur la reconsidération de la pensée elle-même (« rethinking thinking ») au sein des études africaines et du programme décolonial plus large de réécriture de l’Afrique par les Africains.
The reworlding of the world from the Global South directly challenges the resilient coloniser's model of the world. The coloniser's model of the world sustains the contemporary hierarchical and ...asymmetrical modern world system with Europe and North America at its apex of power. Consequently, reworlding from the Global South materialised as a counter-hegemonic initiative driven by struggles of the wretched of the earth for re-existence, liberation and freedom. The epic Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), which embraced 'Black' as an identity of a sovereign people opposed to racism, enslavement and colonialism, forms an ideal genealogy of reworlding from the Global South. This article reflects on evolving ideological, identitarian, cultural, intellectual and pan-African formations and initiatives of resisting empire and remaking the world after the empire. What is highlighted are freedom dreams, self-definition initiatives, critiques of the asymmetrically structured modern world and struggles and visions of re-membering and re-humanisation of the dismembered and dehumanised. The Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall movements, among many other initiatives and formations, have carried over the struggles for reworlding the world from the Global South.
This article offers a provisional decolonial reading of the crisis created by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The article performs five interrelated tasks. The first task addresses the ...question of knowledge and theorizing during exceptional moments. A decolonial case is made for seeking mitigations and solutions to COVID-19 based on the African knowledge and epistemologies from the Global South. Africa in particular and the Global South in general have the richest histories and experiences of epidemics and pandemics. This moment of the COVID-19 pandemic raises questions about the geopolitics of knowledge (which historical archive do we run to, who should learn from whom, and which epistemology is privileged?). The second task is to outline how the triple concepts of paradox, crisis, and crossroads (PCC) can help us to gain a better understanding of the issues cascading in this moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. The third task is a critique of lockdowns as knee-jerk reactions in Africa, since they are not sustainable, and they impinge on life, security, freedom, and economy in fragile African environments. The fourth task is to introduce 10 Ds of the decolonial turn —Deimperialization, De-Westernization, Depatriachization, Deracialization, Debourgeoisement, Decorporatization, Democratization, Deborderization, Decanonization, and Desecularization—which help in envisioning a post-COVID-19 decolonial world order. The final task is to propose decolonial love as the soul of the post-COVID-19 world order based on a new ethics for living together, economies of care, a politics of conviviality, and hospitality as opposed to enmity. Africa in particular and the Global South in general constitute the author’s locus of enunciation.
The problem of the 21st century in the knowledge domain is best rendered as the 'epistemic line'. It cascades directly from William E B Dubois's 'colour line' which haunted the 20th century and ...provoked epic struggles for political decolonisation. The connection between the 'colour line' and the 'epistemic line' is in the racist denial of the humanity of those who became targets of enslavement and colonisation. The denial of humanity automatically disqualified one from epistemic virtue. This conceptual study, therefore explores in an overview format, how Africa in particular and the rest of the Global South in general became victims of genocides, epistemicides, linguicides, and culturecides. It delves deeper into the perennial problems of ontological exiling of the colonised from their languages, cultures, names, and even from themselves while at the same time highlighting how the colonised refused to succumb to the 'silences' and fought for epistemic freedom. The article introduces such useful analytical concepts as 'epistemic freedom' as opposed to 'academic freedom'; 'provincialisation'; 'deprovincialisation'; 'epistemological decolonisation'; 'intellectual extroversion'; and 'epistemic dependence'. It ends with an outline of five-ways-forward in the African struggles for epistemic freedom predicated on (i) return to the base/locus of enunciation; (ii) shifting the geo-and bio-of knowledge/moving the centre; (iii) decolonising the normative foundation of critical theory; (iv) rethinking thinking itself; and finally (v) learning to unlearn in order to relearn.
Este artículo analiza la complementariedad del marxismo (la versión democrática del siglo XXI) y la decolonización (la decolonialidad radical del siglo XXI) como teorías vivas e ideas verdaderas de ...liberación. Se centra en las articulaciones del marxismo y la liberación negra hechas por figuras negras selectas, como Aimé Cesaire, Abdel Khaliq Mahgoub, Amílcar Cabral y Walter Rodney. Dichas figuras produjeron lo que aquí se presenta como decolonialidad marxista negra. En el centro de esta decolonialidad marxista negra se encuentran las intersecciones del marxismo y la decolonización para ahondar el análisis del capitalismo y el colonialismo como fuentes inextricablemente entrelazadas de problemas modernos. No solo se amplía el marxismo ortodoxo para reflexionar sobre la condición Negra sino que también se democratiza para abrirlo y acoger otros movimientos de liberación antirracistas, antiesclavitud, anticapitalistas, anticolonialistas y sexistas antiheteropatriarcales. La decolonización del siglo XX también se extiende más allá de su captura por las elites burguesas que quisieron reemplazar los colonialistas blancos sin cambiar el sistema-mundo moderno con sus jerarquías raciales y su ideología de género.
Decolonizing research methodology is a vast and complex task of undoing its dirty history. The dirty history is so hidden within research methodology that only a careful decolonial mind can unmask ...and reveal it. This task of decolonizing research methodology lies at the core of struggles for epistemic freedom involving rethinking and unthinking dominant ways of producing knowledge. This short article tackles the sacred cow of research methodology, which is often approached as though it is an objective and technical issue of research procedures and technologies of gathering data, rather than one which is very colonial and political, always shot through by complex questions of power, identity, values, and ethics.
PDF
