Decolonising Curricula and Pedagogy in Higher Education

Bringing Decolonial Theory into Contact with Teaching Practice

Shannon Morreira, Kathy Luckett, Siseko H. Kumalo, Manjeet Ramgotra, Shannon Morreira, Kathy Luckett, Siseko H. Kumalo, Manjeet Ramgotra

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000402568
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book brings together voices from the Global South and Global North to think through what it means, in practice, to decolonise contemporary higher education.

Occasionally, a theoretical concept arises in academic debate that cuts across individual disciplines. Such concepts – which may well have already been in use and debated for some time - become suddenly newly and increasingly important at a particular historical juncture. Right now, debates around decolonisation are on the rise globally, as we become increasingly aware that many of the old power imbalances brought into play by colonialism have not gone away in the present.

The authors in this volume bring theories of decoloniality into conversation with the structural, cultural, institutional, relational and personal logics of curriculum, pedagogy and teaching practice. What is enabled, in practice, when academics set out to decolonize their teaching spaces? What commonalities and differences are there where academics set out to do so in universities across disparate political and geographical spaces? This book explores what is at stake when decolonial work is taken from the level of theory into actual practice.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Third World Thematics.

Resurrecting the Black Archive through the decolonisation of philosophy in South Africa

Siseko H. Kumalo

ABSTRACT

While acknowledging the impact of colonial imposition and violence, in this paper, I challenge the notions of epistemicide and linguicide in South Africa as claimed by some decolonial scholars. Using the Black Archive by drawing from S.E.K. Mqhayi’s historical accounts, I argue that to claim linguicide and by extension epistemicide, only perpetuates the erasure of profound Indigenous thinkers such as S.E.K. Mqhayi and W.W. Gqoba. My second move is to showcase how the Black Archive can be used to substantively engage the ontologies of Blackness/Indigeneity in the contemporary university. This move resurrects the Black Archive while constituting the decolonial mission; teaching from a pedagogical predisposition that is locally responsive while simultaneously being globally relevant. I submit that this framework works towards epistemic restitution.

Introduction

I begin by considering how erasure and self-negation are exacerbated by the claim of epistemicide in our context.¹ This consideration highlights the maintenance of continued relegation vis-à-vis Black/Indigenous knowledge(s) owing to the claim of epistemicide.² While my analysis acknowledges colonial imposition and subsequent epistemic slighting, I aim to defend the position that our context experienced systematic attempted epistemic erasure that was and continues to be unsuccessful. This is not to deny the historicity of coloniality, but rather to showcase that the claim of epistemicide only intensifies epistemic injustice. Simply put, I aim to make the case, through contesting epistemicide and linguicide, that this claim maintains the sociality of epistemic practices in Philosophy as discipline. My argument hinges on the Black Archive.³ In complicating the use of epistemicide, my aim is to showcase that language allows us access into knowledge that existed historically and remained irrespective of colonial imposition. Language undergirds, demonstrates and instantiates the Black Archive. The process of reclaiming knowledge that was displaced by colonial imposition is frustrated by claims such as epistemicide and linguicide, as these claims abrogate the starting point of re-membering and remembering. Abrogation of this sort has led to the contentious and salacious want for the ‘intellectualisation of African languages’ for instance. This is to say that abrogation in this sense denies the existence and displaces the contributions of scholars and thinkers such as Nontsizi Mgqwetho, Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, Mazisi Kunene and SEK Mqhayi.

Isingeniso Singaluphikanga udlame olwaqhamuka nokucindezelwa kolwazi lwabantu abantsundu kuleli lakithi (laseNingizimu neAfrika), kulombhalo ngiphikisa umbono obekwe izingcitha-buchopho lapho beqokisa ngokuthi izilwimi kanye nolwazi lwethu lwashabalala ngenxa yalo loludlame. Ngokusebenzisa imibhalo ka SEK Mqhayi equkethwe kwiNqolobane yesizwe – lapho eqopha futhi eshicilela umlando – ngibeka umbono oveza ukuthi lapho sibambelela kulomcabango wokuthi izilwimi kanye nobuciko bolwazi lwakithi kwashabalala ngenxa yodlame nendluzula yengcindezi yabamhlophe, sibhebhethekisa ukushabalala kolwazi oludidiyelwe iZanusi ezifana nabhali o-SEK Mqhayi kanye no WW Gqoba. Ngokwesibili, ngikhangisa ukusetshenziswa kweNqolobane le, lapho siyibenzisela ukucwaninga –ngokuphusile– ubuciko namasiko esintu kwizikhungo zemfundo ephakeme. Lokhu kuvuselela kabusha, isidima kanye nokwazisa indawo yeNqolobane yesizwe – lapho isetshenziselwe khona ukufezekisa izifiso zokulwisana nale ngcindezi. Lokhu kubika imizamo yethu yokufundisa ngenhloso yokuthola izisombululo zezinkinga ezihaqe isizwe, nalapho siyisebenzisela ukuphendulana nezinkiyankiya nezigigaba esibhekene nazo njengomhlaba jikelele. Ngokwami, ngiqokisa ngokuthi ngalendlela yokuhlela ulwazi siyakwazi ukuthi sisebenzele futhi sifezekisa isifiso sokubona ulwazi lwethu, njengabantu abantsundu, lubuyiselwa isidima, lwaziswa ngemfanelo; ezweni loBab’omkhulu.

While South Africa grapples with a number of discontinuities owing to the ‘disruptions [wrought by] colonialism’ (Abrahams 2003), and as Quayson (2002) states it, ‘we have always been consigned to responding from the place where we ought not to have been standing’, I however, maintain that the Black Archive allows us to contextually understand epistemic harms.⁴ While these harms might have been inflicted as early as the seventeenth century as detailed by Coetzee (1988) in White Writing: The Culture of Letters in South Africa, they do not amount to the claim of epistemicide in South Africa (consider Lebakeng et al. 2006; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2015; Ramose 2004). Ramose (2014, 72), however, is cognisant of the shortfalls with this claim as he notes,

It was a systematic, systemic and sustained epistemicide which failed, despite its intensity and vigour, to kill completely and totally the indigenous cultures of Africa. This is the violent context within which Socrates was transported to Africa as the omniscient teacher endowed with the highest competence in the conduct of a deadly monologue (own emphasis added in italics).

My argument is that claims of epistemicide in South Africa are misplaced. I am therefore interested in the development of a concept that explains this problem without running into the challenges highlighted above of displacement and denial. This assertion is rooted in the wealth of knowledge that remains untapped by the Historically White Institutions (HWI).⁵ I suggest that by inviting⁶ this knowledge into the contemporary University, we begin to think critically about epistemic justice and restitution. Epistemic restitution is annulled owing to the lack of a shared ethical intuition; a point substantiated by the lack of engagement with the Black Archive.⁷ This slack engagement motivates claims of epistemicide and linguicide in the country. Furthermore, epistemic restitution is reduced to a non-starter by Black/Indigenous scholars who shore-up the notion of epistemicide. Resultantly, I invite my reader to consider the following questions. If indeed we have experienced epistemicide, how do we begin working towards epistemic restitution; a request that underpins the decolonial tradition? Moreover, is epistemic restitution subsequently meant to be a form of cultural invention? These questions undergird my critique.

My argument subsequently deals with the lack of a shared ethical intuition. I showcase that Fricker’s (2007) proposition (of a shared ethical intuition) does not do sufficient work in our context. I maintain that we not only lack a shared ethical intuition vis-à-vis the colour line/divide but more so, as a tradition; those invested in fighting against epistemic impositions that displace Blackness/Indigeneity. I suggest that there is a lack of a shared ethical intuition even amongst Black/Indigenous philosophers, therefore exacerbating erasure and self-negation, owing to minimal engagement with the Black Archive. The claim of epistemicide rests on not having fully engaged and exhausted the possibilities of the Black Archive. Mine then, lies in dispelling the myth of epistemicide and linguicide, and highlighting the role of the Black Archive in epistemic restitution.

There are two motivations to my argument. The first challenges the disciplines’ failure to acknowledge knowledge of philosophical import that exists outside of Philosophy as discipline, resulting in the continued Eurocentric notions that define Philosophy. Dotson (2011) takes issue with this mode of exclusion maintaining that it inculcates ignorance and limits the kinds of questions that the philosopher can ask by privileging a western-centric and Eurocentric conception of knowledge. Secondly, I aim to showcase how an engagement with the Black Archive locates epistemic slighting in the historical machinations that define South African socio-political and socio-historical reality.

Derived from the critique of Fricker’s (2007) theory, and as my second move, I will showcase how the Black Archive works towards epistemic restitution. I do not dismiss Fricker’s contribution, rather the aim is to showcase how the South African context is such that there is no shared ethical intuition. Fricker (2007, 86) suggests the cultivation of virtuous traits in hearers subsequently counteracting the risk of prejudice(s) distorting the perceptions of the hearer. Developing a virtue schema for testimonial justice, Fricker (2007, 86) suggests an examination of the ‘anti-prejudicial current that the virtuous hearer’s sensibility needs to contain in order’ to steer clear of committing further testimonial injustices against the speaker. Fricker subsequently inquires of ‘the critical awareness needed for a hearer to be able to correct for identity prejudice in a given credibility judgement’ (2007, 90). This is foregrounded by uMqhayi’s sentiments, when he notes that ‘[i]ntetho nemikhwa yesiXhosa iyatshona ngokutshona ngenxa yelizwi nokhanyo olukhoyo, oluze nezizwe zase Ntshona-langa’⁸ (1914, v). uMqhayi demonstrates epistemic injustices derived from colonial imposition, and subsequently suggests that, ‘[y]indawo yomlisela nomthinjana wasemaXhoseni, ukuba akhangele ngokucokisekileyo ukuba iya kuthi, yakutshonela iphelele le ntetho nale mikhwa inesidima yakowawo, kutshonele nto ni na emveni koko’⁹ (1914, v). It is clear to note that as early as the 20^th century uMqhayi had begun thinking about the ethics of power and knowing; a preoccupation inspired by the epistemic slighting of Black/Indigenous knowers due to colonial imposition. Furthermore, I contend that the credibility deficit instituted by colonial categories of thought continues to be perpetuated by scholars who claim epistemicide in our context. The sociality of epistemic injustice, so construed, surfaces an element of Fricker’s argument, i.e.

For a hearer to identify the impact of identity power in their credibility judgement, they must be alert to the impact not only of the speaker’s social identity but also of the impact of their own social identity on their credibility judgement (2007, 91).

Contesting epistemicide through language

To frame the historical encounters in the country as an attempted epistemic erasure that was unsuccessful is rooted in the knowledge that continues to define the realities of our context and the African continent. I begin with the proposition that language on the continent challenges the claim of epistemicide a point that will become clearer as I develop my argument through code-switching. Code-switching (or what is now commonly known as translanguaging), demonstrates the instantiation of epistemic restitution through the Black Archive in the academe. I code-switch with the aim of demonstrating how ‘new’ questions have been considered historically albeit in different forms and in varied mediums. Lastly, code-switching in this treatise demonstrates an epistemic justice praxis.

To make the point of a systematically attempted epistemic erasure as opposed to epistemicide, more vividly I work through Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015, 493) argument,

At another level, the decoloniality articulated here involves re-telling [sic] of history of humanity and knowledge from the vantage point of those epistemic sites that received the ‘darker side’ of modernity, including re-telling the story of knowledge generation as involving borrowings, appropriations, epistemicides, and denials of humanity of other people as part of the story of science.

Re-telling history from those epistemic sites that received the ‘darker side’ of modernity is interesting in how Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015) seems, in this instance, to be flattening the topography that defines the variance of experiences among colonised peoples. To demonstrate, consider Kumalo’s (2018a) analysis of two houses, uKumalo noMagubane, conceptually framed as dialogically responding to one another. Kumalo contends that, ‘claiming the innocence that is created by Inyosi¹⁰ as he reframes, remembers and re-members history, uMagubane is created as an innocent actor in his nation building project.’ (2018a, 208–209). I ought to clarify two concepts here. Kumalo (2018a) makes reference to remembering and re-membering history. In these two instances Kumalo (2018a) highlights orality as a legitimate source of knowledge production seen in his argument as the use of clan names. Orality in the case of remembering is important as it relays and inflects historical narrative with the names of the men and womxn who were worthy of being remembered through izibongo. Remembering, through orality, inscribes an Indigenous identity as the names of one’s forebears define(d) and are defined by the landscape, bestowing an ‘Adamic language’ as detailed by Coetzee (1988) when he writes of a language that is born of the landscape and not imposed.

On the second matter of re-membering, Kumalo (2018a) takes seriously political negotiations in the project of telling histories. Simply put, the narratives constructed by Inyosi are subject to contestation(s), deletions and embellishments, as a conscious political move. My analysis of the Kumalo house as represented by uMzilikazi and detailed by Kumalo (2018a) surfaces this point poig...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Decolonising Curricula and Pedagogy in Higher Education
• 1 Resurrecting the Black Archive through the decolonisation of philosophy in South Africa
• 2 Decoloniality, Spanish and Latin American studies in Australian universities: ¿es un mundo ch’ixi posible?
• 3 Decolonising sociology: perspectives from two Zimbabwean universities
• 4 Initiating decolonial praxis: childhood studies curricula in an English university
• 5 Decolonising the school curriculum in South Africa: black women teachers’ perspectives
• 6 Ubuntu currere in the academy: a case study from the South African experience
• 7 Place and pedagogy: using space and materiality in teaching social science in Southern Africa
• 8 Methodology and academic extractivism: the neo-colonialism of the British university
• Index