Short Abstract

This panel examines the role of African scholars in decolonising knowledge production within higher education. It explores how African-centred epistemologies, indigenous knowledge systems, digital innovation, and transnational scholarly collaboration challenge inherited.

Long Abstract

Higher education in Africa continues to bear the intellectual and institutional legacies of colonialism, particularly in the privileging of Western epistemologies, curricula, methodologies, languages, and systems of academic validation. These structures have historically marginalised African intellectual traditions and indigenous knowledge systems, creating persistent inequalities in whose knowledge is recognised, produced, circulated, and legitimised within universities. Against this background, African scholars are increasingly advancing decolonial approaches that challenge epistemic hierarchies and reposition African knowledge systems at the centre of teaching, research, curriculum development, and scholarly practice. This panel conceptualises African scholarship as a prism through which dominant assumptions about knowledge production can be refracted, questioned, and reimagined. It explores how African scholars engage indigenous epistemologies, histories, languages, cultural traditions, and interdisciplinary methodologies to develop alternative approaches to knowledge production in higher education. Particular attention is given to the role of African universities in cultivating new generations of scholars who move beyond the theoretical discussion of decolonisation towards its practical application in curriculum design, pedagogy, research methods, institutional policies, and scholarly publishing.The panel also considers the growing significance of digital technologies, open-access scholarship, research networks, and transnational academic partnerships in expanding the visibility and global circulation of African knowledge. At the same time, it critically examines the power relations, inequalities, and institutional barriers that may continue to shape such collaborations.Ultimately, the panel provides a platform for examining how African scholars can redefine the purposes, practices, and methodologies of higher education and also advocates for inclusive, African-centred perspectives in global knowledge production.

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