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- Convenors:
-
Geoffrey Nwaka
(Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria)
Chikezie Durugo (University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Economy and Development (x) Decoloniality & Knowledge Production (y)
- Location:
- Hauptgebäude, Hörsaal XXI
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
The science and practice of development in Africa should integrate the traditional knowledge of local communities in the continent. Researchers and policy makers need to tap into the time-tested resource of indigenous knowledge to formulate locally appropriate development policies and programs.
Long Abstract:
African knowledge systems have fora long time been undervalued because of the dominance of Eurocentric mindsets and practices. Critics blame state failure and the development crisis in Africa on “the structural disconnection between formal institutions transplanted from outside and indigenous institutions born of traditional African cultures”; and Marshall Sahlins has emphasized the need for all peoples “to indigenize the forces of global modernity, and turn them to their own ends”, as the real impact of globalization depends largely on the responses developed at the local level. How can Africa engage with globalization and modernization, and address the continent’s many development challenges by drawing on local human and material resources for greater self-reliance and sustainable development? We argue that Africa should search within its own knowledge systems for appropriate ideas and approaches to many of its development problems. We recognize that with growing global interdependence, Africa stands to gain from global science and international best practices, and that indigenous knowledge and global science should be made to complement and enrich each other. But the panel stresses that researchers and the development community should recognize the fact of epistemic diversity, and tap into the vital resource of indigenous/local knowledge for locally appropriate ways to achieve more inclusive, participatory and sustainable development. We welcome papers that deal with various aspects of the decolonial and indigenous knowledge movements in Africa: research on traditional institutions of governance and conflict resolution; traditional/alternative medicine and healthcare; local knowledge for agricultural and natural resource management, climate change adaptation;; and other aspects of indigenous knowledge as appropriate local response to globalization and Western knowledge dominance.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 June, 2023, -Mulako Kabisa (University of the Witwatersrand) Laura Pereira (University of the Witwatersrand) Bwalya Chibwe (Linköping University) Sènankpon Tcheton (University of the Witwatersrand) Liam Carpenter-Urquhart (Stockholm Resilience Centre)
Paper short abstract:
The Nature Futures Framework was used in the M’mbelwa Ngoni Kingdom of Malawi to envision desirable people and nature futures. Five visions and three artworks were developed. Key findings were that it was difficult to imagine desirable futures without referring to pre-colonial times.
Paper long abstract:
The failure to meet global sustainability goals highlights the need to develop transformative strategies to restore the planet. Global scenarios largely ignore the role of the biosphere in supporting a good quality of life and do not allow participants to experiment with the transformative changes necessary to achieve sustainability goals. The aim of this work was to employ a decolonial approach to creating futures that acknowledge structural and historical injustices on the continent.
The African Futures Project, Mabilabo Social Support Forum and the Mzimba Heritage Association convened two future visioning workshops with local communities and traditional leaders of the M'mbelwa Ngoni Kingdom of Mzimba, Malawi. Interviews with key stakeholders were undertaken to understand the regional context. The visioning exercises were grounded in the Nature Futures Framework developed by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Taskforce on Scenarios and Models to develop multiscale scenarios based on desirable human- nature relationships.
Five visions and three artworks on desirable future possibilities for people and nature were developed. A key reflection on connecting Indigenous and Local Knowledge with futures thinking through a decolonial approach was that all groups found it difficult to imagine more desirable futures based on the present, but needed to return to a pre-colonial past to envision what a culturally appropriate future may entail. Case studies using the NFF and FW will be conducted in the Barotse Cultural Landscape, Zambia and “La bouche du Roy” landscape, Benin to elicit desirable future visions.
Paulina Matera (University of Lodz, Poland) Bartosz Kowalski (University of Lodz) Monika Rozalska (University of Lodz)
Paper short abstract:
Based on extensive fieldwork in Ghana, this paper aims to contribute to the debate on decolonizing knowledge of international relations. The main goal is to compare the effectiveness of the economic incentives in the foreign policies of China and the United States from the Ghanaian perspective.
Paper long abstract:
Global economic powers have always used specific instruments in their foreign policy, known as economic incentives, to achieve goals in Sub-Saharan Africa. These tools have been applied to award the target states for meeting certain conditions. From a decolonial perspective, such incentives are a form of exerting power over Sub-Saharan African countries and a tool for maintaining or gaining influence in the region. However, the question remains whether they are needed and expected by the governments and citizens of Sub-Saharan African states.
Based on extensive fieldwork in Ghana, this paper aims to contribute to an ongoing debate about the need for decolonizing knowledge and practice of international relations. The main goal is to compare the effectiveness of the economic incentives in the foreign policy of global economic powers, China and the United States, from a local, African perspective. The study concentrates on the case of Ghana as one of the most active actors in the African context. The authors search for answers to the following questions: How do Ghanaian authorities, intellectuals and ordinary people perceive and access these foreign economic incentives directed toward their state? What kind of incentives do China and the US use in their respective policies toward Ghana? Are these incentives expected, appreciated and beneficial or the opposite – treated as instruments of foreign suppression and unneeded assistance? Which economic incentives are valuable for the development of Ghana? Which ones are the remnants of the past era and a tool of interference in domestic issues?
Klaus Geiselhart (Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg)
Paper short abstract:
The paper offers a methodological approach to decolonialisation. It mediates modern and traditional medicine by means of offering conceptual changes.
Paper long abstract:
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) traditional healing methods should be integrated into national health systems. The reasons of why this fails in Botswana are manifold and complex but can be associated with colonial traits and especially the introduction of a modern health system. Understanding how practices, knowledge and modes of inference produce coherent systems of thought in different medical epistemes can reveal their respective strengths.
Traditional healers are often accused of irrationality and mysticism. From a scientific point of view, conclusions based on spirituality do not have the same status as conclusions generated on the basis of rational thinking. However, from a traditional doctor's point of view it is the appropriate mode of inferring and even modern doctors would have to agree, if they knew that healers attach only very uncertain status to their conclusions.
The concept of transrationality allows to describe the specific character and benefits of spiritual healing practices and can thus contribute to their appreciation. It can therefore be considered a contribution to conceptual decolonisation. It could be helpful in establishing better cooperation between traditional healers and modern health systems, as the WHO is striving for.
Amani Olúbánjọ Buntu (ARKIVET Peace and Human Rights Centre)
Paper short abstract:
The paper presents a critical examination of patriarchal power-values in African cultures as they manifest today, in relation to indigenous epistemologies. A decolonial transformation of masculinity is suggested, by creating a liberating curriculum for future-oriented male development.
Paper long abstract:
It has become commonplace to describe African cultures as intrinsically founded on patriarchal hierarchies of power. We have gotten used to seeing men as the most favored leaders, decision makers and heroes. In addition, men are also seen as the instigators of violence through domestic abuse and political conflicts. Does this, then, mean that African cosmology encourages and excuses male dominance and oppression? If men increasingly are seen as “problematic”, what should then be the future of African men?
Through the work of scholars such as Cheikh Anta Diop, Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, Ifi Amadiume and Sakhumzi Mfecane, we are made aware of a quite different gender-script within African indigenous knowledge. They highlight that African cultures – before imperialistic invasions – practiced equity between women and men, interpreted gender as situational/relational and understood meaningful manhood as an outcome of collectively guided learning journeys.
This paper will argue the need for – as part of a broader decolonization process – African masculinity development to be re-examined and informed by indigenous epistemologies, in order to foster the development of boys and men that are necessary for Africa’s future. Applying a decolonial lens, the paper will examine (masculine) power in light of history, politics and socio-economic marginalization, and further outline a liberating curriculum for future-oriented male development, rooted in indigenous knowledge systems.
The presentation will build on the researcher’s long-standing investigations and practical work on African masculinity in South Africa and his current research on challenges affecting Black men in Norway.
Agustina Alvarez (Independent researcher)
Paper short abstract:
By focusing on sacred forests conservation mechanisms in North Pare, Tanzania, this paper discusses local knowledge and worldviews that provide environmental ethics responsible for ecologically sustainable outcomes, and which should complement recent (and Western dominated) conservation efforts.
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on sacred forests in Northern Tanzania and questions the future of their conservation amidst vanishing local customs and traditions. Despite not being officially gazetted by the State, studies show that these sacred forests have a wider variety of endemic flora and fauna and are better preserved than national forests reserves. Although they are small in size, sacred forests are important globally, with the Eastern Arc Mountains declared one of the world’s 25 “biodiversity hotspots”. However, many forests have lost their caretakers due to either religious conversion, the introduction of Western philosophical concepts, or age. Scholars and, more broadly, the Global Forest Goals see forest law enforcement and legally established protected areas as the preferable solution to halt deforestation. Yet, this study reflects on the limits of the modern conservation agenda, which, based upon a mechanistic worldview (antithetic to a holistic visualisation of reality), disregards intrinsic meanings and layers of local forest conservation. The findings of my research, collected by means of an ethnographic fieldwork, show that Pare customs and traditions have not completely vanished and the punitive power of ancestors spirits is still the primary mechanism behind sacred forests conservation: the concept of interconnectedness of all beings and the interrelations between the visible and non-visible worlds, upon which the eco-centred African holistic vision of creation exist(ed), needs to be considered and complement recent conservation efforts, which focus only on tangible benefits and reproduce colonial boundaries, neglecting the worldviews that provide environmental ethics responsible for ecologically sustainable outcomes.
Audrey Vanessa Noukeu Petnguen
Paper short abstract:
"I will rather live today and die tomorrow!”- why reviewing our understanding of "indigenous" could help improve the state of natural resources.
Paper long abstract:
The importance of local knowledge in natural resource conservation has been recognized by most scholars. Since then, many programs have been carried out, highlighting this knowledge and giving local people the right to manage their natural resources. Ghana was the first in its region to adopt this model and set up the CREMA (community-based natural resources management areas).
But contrary to predictions, based on past successes before colonialism, there has been no improvement in the state of Natural resources. On the contrary, the situation has worsened.
This study is a single case study of a Community Resource Management Area, Cape-Three-Points-Princess in southwest Ghana. The data were collected using mixed-methods approaches and processed through correlation analysis. The findings showed that local knowledge is still valid, however, needs to be adapted to the new realities of the local people. A new definition of "indigenous" must be made, different from atemporal, and globally disconnected.
Keywords: CREMA, indigenous, Community-based natural resources management, Pro-environmental behavior; participation, Natural resources conservation, Ghana, Africa
Jacob Attah (Christian Aid) Tara Korti (Change Alliance) Talatu Aliyu (Christian Aid UK)
Paper short abstract:
This paper lays the contours of a decolonial approach to evaluation of climate resilience building interventions aimed at marginalized communities in Northeast Nigeria. It reflexively engages with the question of whether and how this approach was able to shift power for epistemic justice.
Paper long abstract:
Evaluation of humanitarian and development interventions within Africa have mostly been commissioned, designed and carried out using colonial approaches. This ethically flawed ‘colonized’ approach takes power away from the primary stakeholders in the context. This paper is an analytical reflection on the decolonial approach to evaluation of climate change adaptation interventions in Malakyariri, Mafa in Borno state Nigeria. The decolonial approach to evaluation involved the following components:
i) participation of the members from marginalized communities in the co-design of the evaluation criteria and questions so that the evaluation is relevant to the local context and evidence need,
ii) usage of participatory data collections such as photovoice, transect walks, road block etc so as to give centrality to knowledges of communities), and
iii) co-designing the development of the knowledge products and dissemination plan with the members from the marginalized communities.
The authors reflexively engage with the question of whether and how this approach was able to shift power for epistemic justice. Hence, we reflect on whether the evaluation was able to prioritise diverse voices and knowledges of the communities whilst engaging in a process of reflection regarding our own positionality as evaluators. We hope that this learning will inspire and challenge your approach to development evaluation as a practitioner or as an academic.