Paper long abstract:

Global inequalities today derive largely from the unequal power relations in the way knowledge for development has historically been produced and applied. Africa contributes least to but suffers the most from the disastrous consequences of climate change. How can the continent cope with the worsening threats of flooding, droughts and other emergencies that result from extreme weather conditions. We argues that Africa should search within their own knowledge systems for appropriate ideas and approaches to many of its development challenges, and that indigenous knowledge may prove to be "the single largest knowledge resource not yet mobilized in the development enterprise." Although poverty may sometimes force people to use resources in an unsustainable way, most traditional African societies have deeply entrenched ideas about environmental protection and sustainability because their livelihood depends largely on the land and on the stability of the ecosystem. They believe that land and other forms of nature are sacred, and are held in trust by the present day users on behalf of dead ancestors and future generations. Chief Nana Ofori Attah of Ghana once told a colonial official that 'land belongs to a large family of which many are dead, a few are living, and countless hosts are yet unborn". These local communities have over the years developed intricate systems of forecasting weather systems to prevent and mitigate natural disasters; traditional techniques of soil management, pest and disease control, adopting suitable crop and animal varieties, and other strategies that have ensured traditional resilience. The paper recognizes that the unprecedented scale of climate change today may have undermined the reliability of many traditional indicators for predicting the pattern of climate variability, and techniques for preventing and adapting to climate induced natural disasters. There is therefore a need for those who hold and use traditional knowledge to partner with scientists and practitioners in order to co-produce updated knowledge for better climate risk management. This way, the traditional and modern knowledge systems will be made to complement and enrich each other. Thus, while Africa stands to gain form global science and international best practices, indigenous knowledge offers a model for rethinking and redirecting the development process, and a way to adapt effectively to climate change. Researchers and the development community should therefore try to tap into the vital resource of indigenous knowledge for locally appropriate and culture-sensitive ways to protect the environment, and ensure climate resilience and sustainable development.

Paper short abstract:

This paper considers two ways in which African fiction intervenes in the imperative to decolonise trauma theory.

Paper long abstract:

Originating from interdisciplinary scholarship on the Holocaust in Euro-American academy, trauma theory has both been a useful conceptual tool for interrogating histories of subjection and the cause of much contestation with regards to postcolonial contexts. Responding to the call for decolonise trauma theory, I consider some of the ways in which modes of writing which would not necessarily be considered theory contribute to a more inclusive notion of the psychological subject in the African context. In so doing, I limit my attention to selected African texts in which children feature prominently as narrators/focalisers, in order to suggest that the imperative to decolonise trauma theory need not preclude the value of the scholarship that has come before. Instead, I argue for the inclusion of unofficial modes of theorising in order to reinvent this area of inquiry.

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Paper long abstract:

Abstract

Decolonising African studies might be one such challenging business to venture. At a time when we can hear voices for decolonisation, we also see European and American cities exchanging host roles of African studies conferences and workshops. This is happening amid growing numbers of African universities in the continent. We also see long established and beginning centres of African studies in Europe, America and Asia while less effort is done in Africa to strengthen participation in knowledge creation and ownership. In this paper we shall analyse the relevance and politics involved in the production and dissemination of knowledge in and about Africa. We shall take the argument that there is an urgent need and relevance to enhance the role of African based scholars in the processes of knowledge creation and dissemination. It shows that despite the increase in the number of higher learning institutions and the number of African based scholars in the continent; the powerhouses dependable on African studies are still in America, Europe and recently establishing in Asia. This has influenced theories, methods and thematic trends to which Africa depends on and has no control of. These same challenges haunt the teaching in lower and higher levels, as the materials and conceptualisations used are West-centred understanding of Africa. Real decolonisation should involve active participation of African institutions and individuals, something that has proved difficulty to attain for decades. For now, Africa needs to define its own concepts, theorisations and relevance in the global context of knowledge production. This paper will trace the development of African studies over the past six decades showing the dynamics, changes and continuities in the efforts to decolonise it and the challenges it embodies. It will also analyse the influence of western approach to African scholarship for the past sixty years of African independence.

Paper long abstract:

This article illustrates the social experiences of de-politicizing and re-politicizing processes in the fight against gender-based violence and femicide in the feminist civil society space in Cape Town, South Africa. I aim to add to the well-known critique of the de-politicization of the gendered international development agenda, by illustrating that alongside de-politicizing processes, also forces of re-politicization are at play. The fight against gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa is not picked up by developmental organizations alone; South Africa also has a rich culture of feminist activism. I argue that with the emerge of an new autonomous feminist movement in 2018, The Total Shutdown, the de-politicization and re-politicization of gender-based violence happens simultaneously. Individuals move between different spaces of resistance to renegotiate their feminist ideological standpoints to challenge and disrupt post-Apartheid (non-)actions in tackling the high rates of rape and femicide in the country. This research shows that the boundary between NGO benefactors and activists is a blurry one; both groups move between spaces to create the counter-narratives and the counter-identifications they can identify with, to achieve their feminist goals to end femicide in South Africa and to reclaim personal feelings of (women) empowerment.

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Paper short abstract:

This article aims to introduce a new epistemology in African Cinema by its cross-fertilization with African Intercultural Philosophy.

Paper long abstract:

This article aims to introduce a new epistemology in African Cinema by its cross-fertilization with African Intercultural Philosophy. It will do so by concentrating on the global colonial and decolonized politics of space and time, by connecting so-called African Intercultural Philosophical Cinema to the wider history of African Cinema and by providing an example of a film analysis in this field. The focus will, thereby, be on the shortlisted documentary 'Common Threads' (2018). This Zanzibar festival's committee's nominee concentrates on the nineteenth-century and current Afro-Indian textile trade, the associated oral narratives and their visual impact on the so-called Kanga and Vitenge textiles.

Key words: African Cinema, African Philosophy, Intercultural Philosophy, Epistemology.

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Paper long abstract:

The legacies of settler colonialism are ever present in contemporary life in South Africa: the coloniality-of-being shapes subjectivities as well as a wide range of practices (Maldonado-Torres 2007). These practices include forms of political protest that are employed strategically by South Africa's resurgent - and insurgent - social movements, ranging from #RMF to Abahlali Basemjondolo (Shack Dwellers movement), as well as diverse protests actions that are not linked to existing structures, but that are nevertheless carefully planned (and not spontaneous eruptions of discontent).

At the same time the post-apartheid period has seen increased global migrations from the global south. While we have seen growing movements of people across national borders, anti-migrant ideologies and practices have become more violent across the globe. In South Africa, the frequent acts of violence against migrants are not only concerning but our understandings of these are varied and highly contested. How do social movements negotiate the space between the growing calls for decolonization and the growing movements of people across (post)-colonial borders? This question assumes even more urgency today as humanity faces a global pandemic, COVID -19, which has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities and already limited resources in many countries of the global south. What can the black radical tradition tell us about the practices of those who live in 'liminal spaces' and 'zones of non being' (Biko 1978, Fanon 1952)? What are the possible spaces for an ethics of decolonization, where 'alternative life-activity' of the wretched is entangled with practices of solidarity 'in their own right' (Wynter 2006)?

In this paper I look at social movements in South Africa. I show how despite growing calls for decolonization; radical redistribution and competition over (scarce) resources, radical anti-colonial/decolonial African (social) movements have always put forward a radical concept of the human- at the center of their struggles. This holds true for the radical African anti-colonial movements in the past and the decolonial movements today. Central to my discussion is the careful analysis of a community protest that took place in a rural town in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province in 2015. In my analysis I follow this protest from the planning meetings in the township to the march through town, and the subsequent confrontation with members of the local government. I show how current realities of social marginalization are articulated with politically motivated - transgressions of cultural and gendered normativities, anti-nationalism intersectional solidarities.

Paper long abstract:

Language and Educational Policies and

the "Postcolonial" State in Africa

Tesfaye Wolde-Medhin, PHD, MLS

Abstract

The paper takes a relational/historical perspective to make a serious of arguments regarding the so-called postcolonial states in Africa. It begins by invoking the genetic theory of ideas from the work of Gilles Deleuze, to make the basic argument that the ideas underpinning the assemblage of institutions and practices, of which the current African instances are varying actualizations, emerged in the context of Africa's encounter and interaction with European colonial domination beginning towards the end of the 19th century. The paper then provides brief explorations of current language and educational polices of selected African countries from various regions of the continent with a view to illustrating and validating the above basic claim. The paper subsequently argues that these states of affairs have given rise to deep structural and organizational disjuncture between the institutions and practices of state apparatuses and those of indigenous knowledge and social and cultural practices. The paper further argues that this situation of disarticulation has far-reaching egregiously negative consequences for the resilience and vitality of, on the one hand, the African "postcolonial" state as vehicle and expression of political community and, on the other, the vast majorities of citizenries as embodiments of indigenous sociocultural institutions and practices. Under these circumstances, state power becomes fragile and unstable, prone to the vagaries of regional and geopolitical contestations, ethical lapses and political and financial corruptions of elites, coup d'etats, etc., while local and indigenous sociocultural institutions and practices are left to wilt and die without the supports they need to get from the states in order to maintain their vitalities to flourish and develop. The paper concludes by pointing to possible long-term directions of changes meant to create situations in which sociocultural institutions and practices of external provenance would interact with those which are homegrown in a manner of mutual interplay, reinforcement and perpetual syntheses instead being one in which the external smothers the internal.

Paper long abstract:

Low proficiency levels in literacy and numeracy are a significant occurrence in our classrooms and education systems even as the global focus shifts from access to learning for all. A significant number of learners exit primary education without foundational skills in literacy and numeracy. Globally, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates that 617 million children and adolescents are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. This is echoed by evidence from Citizen-led Assessments conducted in the global south, wherein in 2015, only 56% and 46% of grade 3 children could read a grade 2 level Kiswahili text in Tanzania and Kenya respectively. This calls for immediate action to resolve the learning crisis, which, if left unattended, will inhibit not only individual growth but also their contribution to thriving economies. The PAL Network, through its membership, has adapted the Pratham inspired Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) remedial approach to mediate the learning gaps. This approach i) establishes levels of learning through simple assessments ii) groups learners according to levels rather than age or grade and iii) offers individualized, level-based instruction to hasten acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy skills. The Asia-Africa partnership has resulted in initiatives in countries such as Kenya and Mozambique, where the adapted approach has shown great potential in helping learners acquire the foundational skills within a short period, usually 30-50 days. Across these countries, more than half of the children moved a level higher in only ten days with more than half reading a story in 30 days. This paper explores the evolution of partnerships from Asia to Africa. We discuss what partnerships mattered most in adapting successful innovations in the various contexts and the lessons learned.

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Paper short abstract:

Indigenous knowledge systems have shown to contain potential transformative tools if effectively integrated in the water sector of development to improve development and management systems not only as a matter of redress but also to enrich the current systems.

Paper long abstract:

The better part of the 1990s decade saw growth being discussed in the context of social capital and development which encapsulated indigenous knowledge as part of mainstream development. The late dates of the same decade however experienced tensions between the indigenous and western claims. Local knowledge rejected western science’s claim to universality and its institutionalization that it can be archived and transferred. Since then, there have been more claims that indigenous knowledge has failed to impact on development over the years. Three most commonly mentioned thematic areas are that indigenous knowledge is locally and geographically specific, doubts as to how the knowledge can be formally integrated with formal science and, issues of appropriation of indigenous knowledge into the prevailing discourse of neoliberalism. Indigenous knowledge systems have nevertheless shown to contain potential transformative tools if effectively integrated in the water sector of development to improve development and management systems not only as a matter of redress but also to enrich the current systems. This paper, based on a study carried out in the period between 2018 and 2020 among the Maasai pastoralists and Kamba agropastoralists inhabiting the south eastern arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of Kenya sought to identify and interrogate the indigenous knowledge practices in water resources development and management and, establish its claim with specific reference to locating, constructing, quality treatment and governance. The utilized data collection methods were survey questionnaires, key informant interviews and observations. The findings indicate that failure to recognize and accommodate traditional tenets in developing and managing water affairs in the ASALs milieu may result in disappointments. Resulting from the letdown of the state to provide efficient water structures combined with the challenges the ASALs face with regards to water, the inhabitants use their knowledge to meet their water needs. The knowledge is socially constructed having been acquired through accumulation of experiences, society-nature relationships, community practices and institutions passed down through generations. Significantly, the latest water institutional dispensation brought by the water sector reforms takes cognizance of grassroots institutions, providing space for the traditional knowledge they possess which is enshrined in the successes gained in managing the ecological and hydrological environments. This may provide some saving grace.

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