Lecturers are key to ending colonial epistemicide

In an article titled “Universities and the legacy of colonial epistemicide” published in University World News on 9 September 2021, Phaedra Haringsma discusses colonial epistemicide, its consequences and mitigating solutions. She defines colonial epistemicide as the process of ‘killing and erasure of indigenous knowledge’.

As the author puts it, it is equal to “silencing of indigenous expressions”. She goes on to assert that colonial conquest brings epistemicide as the colonisers impose their epistemologies on the colonised population through education.

According to the author, the European modernity project is another form of colonial epistemicide in that it emphasises predominantly European epistemologies to the exclusion of others.

The author quotes perspectives of post-colonial scholars such as Rosalba Icaza Garza, Clemente Abrokwaa, Toyin Falola, and Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes either to support her assertions or to illuminate specific issues.

Defining decolonisation of higher education

Decolonisation is a concept without universal definition. Every definition of decolonisation is context-embedded, suggesting that decolonisation in West Africa is different from decolonisation in South Africa. Similarly, decolonisation in the United States is different from decolonisation in Nigeria, for example.

The simplest definition of decolonisation of the African university is the process of undoing all legacies of colonialism. But what does decolonised African higher education really look like?

Does decolonisation mean a process for determining what should be included or excluded from African higher education course curricula? Is decolonisation about eliminating Western knowledge systems from African universities’ course curricula and replacing it with African indigenous knowledge and values?

Alternatively, does decolonisation entail inclusion of African indigenous ways of knowing, knowledge and values in African university curricula and the exclusion of Western knowledge and values that are deemed irrelevant or destructive to African development or realities?

The latter conceptualisation seems an appropriate definition because we have to be careful in our decolonisation discourse not to throw away the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. Right after attaining political independence, this conceptualisation served as the blueprint for decolonisation in West Africa, although the process has stalled.

Admittedly, numerous strands of Western knowledge are relevant to African development or realities despite the fact that they were framed in a culturally different environment.

For instance, in the research domain, Euro-American research theory and the practice of participant consent, anonymity, focus groups, interviews and data analysis are all relevant to research in Africa. Concepts, theories and practices from specific disciplines that are relevant to African development and realities are too numerous to enumerate.

In most cases, the major problem is not the imported Western knowledge itself. Instead, what matters most is the manner in which African university educators teach the imported Western knowledge to their students.

In a situation where African university educators hold the imported Euro-American knowledge and values sacrosanct and universalistic, as most of them do, they are inflexible and demand absolute regurgitation of what they teach students. And they would not allow their students to engage in any critique of that knowledge, challenge that knowledge or link that knowledge to local phenomena.

This is how epistemicide occurs and maintains itself in the academy. Thus, African university educators play an enormous role in perpetuating colonial epistemicide in African universities.

Colonial epistemicide as a control mechanism

The author asserts that the colonial knowledge systems control the information available to Africans and the methods they use to process it. However, this is a huge stretch and for this reason we have to put the time the author writes the article at the centre of any criticisms we may level against her.

It is a fact that African universities glorify and genuflect colonial knowledge systems and they use them as normative standards for determining what valid knowledge is, and what is not.

Consequently, university students are compelled to think and reason within that system of knowledge in order to pass examinations, obtain appropriate grades on assignments, and attain the required number of credits to gain their degrees.

Nonetheless, with the explosion of information as well as information sources in this digital technological age, the colonial knowledge systems cannot in any shape or form dictate or control what students read or not read. It is up to individual students to determine what they want to read outside of the approved course curriculum and materials.

Furthermore, it is true that no society has been untouched by European colonial epistemicide. Yet indigenous knowledge and languages still exist and grow incrementally in the larger African society as the author acknowledges, quoting Dr Toyin Falola, though it has been shut out of the universities: “… the establishment of the academy and its consecutive expansion has not completely displaced local systems knowledge nor does it exist separately from it”.

What causes African indigenous knowledge and language to thrive despite the fact of its being shut out of the universities?

Every African nation state is unofficially divided into two societies: traditional, where indigenous knowledge and language thrive; and modern, where the African educated elite live, undergirded by Euro-American lifestyles, philosophical thoughts and language. This social division has made it possible for indigenous knowledge and language to survive. And it slightly influences the academy.

African universities as propagators of colonial epistemicide

The author states that African universities play a key role in propagating colonial epistemicide and that it has the effect of encouraging African academics to migrate to Europe for greener pastures while students are also motivated to migrate to Europe to continue their studies.

Nevertheless, in the author’s assertion that African universities are complicit in propagating colonial epistemicide it is not clear who owns that responsibility. Is it the administrative staff or the teaching faculty? From my standpoint, the African university educators are responsible for the continuous destructive force of colonial epistemicide in the academy.

Without a doubt, the pioneer African universities that the European colonialists established in Africa were founded on European knowledge systems, pedagogical structures, administrative models and expatriate staff.

What about those African universities that were established after African countries attained political independence? While African universities have Africanised their staff, their curricula and pedagogical structures remain significantly unchanged. Euro-American knowledge systems continue to dominate the curricula of those universities.

It is an undeniable fact that African university educators transfer Euro-American knowledge and values from pioneer African universities to the newly established ones; habitually import knowledge and values from Europe and America through textbooks, journal articles and the internet; and African university educators who were educated in Euro-American universities also bring along with them Euro-American knowledge to African universities.

Hence, contemporarily the dominance of Euro-American knowledge systems in African universities can be attributed to African university educators’ behaviour rather than direct imposition by the former colonial powers. This is despite the fact that these phenomena are not identified as problems in the decolonisation discourse.

Again, many researchers refer to university lecturers and professors with metaphors such as knowledge workers, knowledge gate-keepers, and knowledge dictators. The fact is that educators have absolute control over decisions about what they teach such as content knowledge, pedagogical approaches, relationships with students and assessment modalities in their ‘territories’ called classrooms, seminar rooms, lecture halls, laboratories.

Therefore, African university educators have great latitude to include indigenous African ways of knowing and knowledge, local realities and illustrations in what they teach in their ‘territories’. Alternatively, they could allow their students to interrogate and rigorously critique the knowledge they teach them. But few African educators would allow their students to critique or question their presentation of Euro-American knowledge and values.

African university educators who refuse to incorporate indigenous knowledge into what they teach do so for three major reasons. First and foremost, those university educators may not be experts in indigenous knowledge systems and may feel inadequate to make space for inclusion of indigenous African knowledge.

Further, some African university educators have internalised the false belief that African indigenous knowledge and values do not fulfil the criteria of fully-fledged knowledge. Such educators may ask the following question: How can indigenous knowledge systems be compared to scientifically proven ‘knowledge’ (of Euro-America) of so many years?

What they do not know is that African indigenous knowledge systems have helped Africans to live and survive thousands of years before the emergence of Euro-American scientific-technological knowledge and values.

The other fact is that African university educators’ possession of colonial knowledge, values and language is in and of itself power over indigenous African students and others. It helps them to exercise control over what they do in their ‘territories’ without the need to negotiate knowledge or seek affirmation of what they teach or intend to teach.

Proposed solutions

The author of the article provides three main solutions to colonial epistemicide.

The first is to review and establish standards for redefining what constitutes academic knowledge, culture and practice for all disciplines. This is a critical proposal, but whose responsibility is it to undertake that review and set up canonical standards for knowledge?

African university educators, along with the university administrators coordinating the process, should undertake the review and establish standards. This is not a matter for government policy intervention.

Another solution the author quotes from an African researcher is to prioritise African languages and cultural systems in mainstream education in the continent. This solution sounds simplistic but it is very difficult to implement as it has different competing interpretations and multiple political actors are involved.

Again, whose responsibility is it to undertake the prioritisation of African languages and cultures? African governments cannot single-handedly do that prioritisation without the full support and committed cooperation of university educators. Yet African university educators are not unanimous in their views and orientation toward decolonisation.

Finally, the author suggests a pan-African cooperation in knowledge sharing and distribution. This solution is based on the assumption that interactions among Africans through knowledge sharing would lead to a focusing of education on themselves and their local or continental realities.

Having said that, I suggest a serious commitment, beyond rhetoric, to regional cooperation in knowledge sharing as a starting point.

This is because it is much easier to start at the regional level than at the continental level. Regional education conferences, organised student exchange programmes, student and educator field trips to countries within the region, and visiting professorships would be excellent starting points.

A novel solution is for the Association of African Universities to organise conferences, symposia and workshops to assist university lecturers and professors to acquire skills on how to include indigenous knowledge systems in academic methods and theories.

Additionally, African universities should commit to documenting African indigenous knowledge whether in agriculture, animal husbandry, ecology, herbal medicine or food preservation. Normally, African indigenous knowledge is in an oral form and documenting it and explaining its foundations will help to preserve it for wider distribution.

This is an area in which the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) could play a role.

In any discourse on decolonisation generally, and epistemicide particularly, in African universities, we have to decipher the responsibilities of African university educators.

We cannot critically blame the entirety of colonial epistemicide on European colonial powers and American imperialism. As Dr Francis Nyamnjoh wrote in his recent paper on ‘Decolonising the University in Africa’, lack of willpower and sustained commitment by African university educators has slowed the pace of decolonisation of African universities.

It should be noted that educators at all levels of an education system are pivotal to decolonisation and should get involved. It is not lone-ranger work or spectator sport.

Without the full and serious commitment and cooperation of educators, decolonisation of African universities is just another hollow slogan that Africans have been trumpeting since the dawn of political independence. In spite of that, teacher education, professional development and welfare have not received any serious policy considerations across the African continent.

Dr Eric Fredua-Kwarteng is an educator and policy specialist in Canada.