The decolonised university should be a ‘space of exchange’

African universities should decolonise through human and epistemic diversity and internationalisation rather than by adopting a parochial “nativism” and by retreating into epistemic enclaves separate from the rest of the world, says Dr William Mpofu, a researcher at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Global engagement that is locally relevant can foster the exchange of knowledge at universities as well as heterogeneity among those promoting and sharing the knowledge, according to Mpofu.

At the same time, the histories of power that have shaped higher education institutions on the continent and their disciplinary offerings must be critically reviewed and redressed so that the “wounds” of the past may be healed and new understandings of the world may be produced, he says.

“The decolonisation project should be seeking to equip the disadvantaged with the relevant skills so that they can participate in a higher education system that is both locally rooted and globally relevant and competitive,” said Mpofu.

“The aim has never been to foster higher education that is disconnected from the international university system – to create ‘free’ universities that operate as enclaves or villages separate from the rest of the world.”

Decoloniality is not ‘village-ism’

Mpofu notes that, in this respect, “the opponents of decoloniality who describe it as a form of village-ism or primitivism – as an attempt to disconnect with modernity and go back to animal skins and spears – have failed to grasp the character of the movement”.

In fact, he says, the decolonial project in higher education seeks to promote diversity and inclusivity. For example, the decolonised university should be a “space of exchange … a space of creative, productive friction among the world’s epistemologies”.

To this end, Mpofu argues: “Much needs to be done to make the epistemologies promoted at universities receptive to those that derive from folk tales, myths and legends, oral traditions and community learning – forms of knowledge and understanding that are not structured as knowledge is currently structured in the university.”

He further contends that the promotion of epistemic diversity will necessarily entail bringing together “those who come from disadvantage … with those who come from advantage” enabling “people who come from different histories to interact equitably and learn from each other in the same space”.

Opposing a ‘nativist’ approach

In this regard, he is particularly critical of the “nativist” approach to decolonialisation adopted by some students during the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall protests which erupted in South Africa from 2015.

Noting how a number of students argued, “If we are decolonialising, if we are liberating, what are white-skinned people doing in this audience? What are Indians doing here? This is a black thing,” Mpofu says that protesters came to mirror the very mindset they claimed to oppose.

“Those who argue that some epistemologies and some human beings should be expelled from the university are adopting the same approach as the colonisers who insisted on replacing individuals, and deriding local epistemologies as superstition and replacing them with epistemologies imported from Europe.”

At the same time, Mpofu emphasises the importance of addressing how the history of colonialism has shaped the institutional character of many African universities in ways that can continue to marginalise individuals from disadvantaged groups.

He describes how a number of the historically white universities in Africa were founded as college campuses of existing universities headquartered in Europe with the purpose of educating “the sons of empire”; and notes the need for fundamental transformation so that such institutions can now accommodate and educate “the daughters of empire and the descendants of slaves” and become “African universities, rather than Western universities on African soil”.

Reparative university

Accordingly, Mpofu argues that the decolonised higher education institutions of the future should have the quality of a “reparative university”.

“They should be systematically and structurally awake to the wounds of the past – the wounds caused by the university itself; the wounds caused by empire; the wounds caused by colonialism; the wounds caused by slavery; and the wounds caused by structural inequality,” he said.

“Such a university should understand that many of its students bear these wounds.”

Accordingly, Mpofu says, the work of decolonisation should include reviewing how the campus appears and is shaped by the symbols that populate it and the rituals that are performed there.

“The reality is that the university is dominated by a male, white, Christian and Western sensibility – and is, therefore, colonial. In response, there is a need to humanise this space by making it female, non-gender-conforming, youthful and diverse.”

In this context, he praises the way in which many students at South African graduation ceremonies have introduced performative elements, such as dances, from their own cultures into the ritual.

“The students … who dance like this are not just producing a spectacle; they are engaging in an existential effort to introduce their own culture into the space, which is a mission worthy of respect.”

The decolonisation project should also entail revisiting the character of the disciplines taught at university and the traditional position of thinkers and teachers within the academic system, according to Mpofu.

Interrogating historical origins of disciplines

He argues that the historical origins of disciplines should be interrogated with particular reference to the forms of power that they were established to bolster.

“For example, anthropology as a discipline emerged so that European empire builders, merchants and the missionaries who came to the Global South could gain an understanding of the individuals, the communities and societies with which they were going to be engaging.

“Similarly, after 1945, when the United States came into world dominion and faced the problem of Chinese and Russian communist influence in the Global South, it wanted scientific ideas and methods that could be deployed to counter that incursion and reinforce its power, which led to the birth of development studies,” Mpofu explained.

Therefore, he contends, it is important to understand “the ways in which the disciplines are shaped by a colonial sensibility” so that the work of “repurposing them in support of liberation and actual needs on the ground” can begin.

“In the decolonial school, this approach is called ‘undisciplinarity’, a term in which the ‘un’ does not denote opposition but rather a process of undoing so that the historical guilt inherent in the disciplines is expunged as they are realigned through acknowledgment of the legacy of their histories and made relevant to present experiences.”

‘White and male’

In this context, Mpofu notes that most of the current disciplines may be characterised as “white and male, in the sense that every discipline seems to have a (white) father somewhere”.

Accordingly, he identifies a clear need to change the positionality of the thinker and the teacher at universities and to frame pedagogy and scholarship not as the product of a distant, omniscient instructor or intellectual, but rather as the product of a process of mutual learning in which the students collaborate with their tutors and lecturers.

“In this way, the students also become the thinkers – and the disciplines, and the education system and process are humanised as they are aligned to the lived experiences of those involved,” he said.

This article is based on an interview conducted by Professor Crain Soudien, Professor Thierry M Luescher, Dr Angelique Wildschut and Ms Vuyiswa Mathambo for The Imprint of Education project, which is being implemented by the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. This project, which includes a series of critical engagements with experienced scholars and thought leaders on their reimaginings of higher education in Africa, investigates current and future challenges facing the sector, including best practices and innovations. Luescher and Mark Paterson edited the transcript for focus and length. Features already published in the series and a full transcript of the interview can be downloaded from the HSRC’s website.