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- Convenors:
-
Faisal Garba
(University of Cape Town)
Manuela Boatca (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg)
Akosua Darkwah (University of Ghana)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- African Studies
- Location:
- Room 1224
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 8 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together researchers based in Africa and Europe who have been grappling with what it means to think and do decolonisation in the classroom, in framing research and through writing and public intellectualism.
Long Abstract:
Following years of work by scholars (working out of the South and the global North), recent student protests on the African Continent and mobilisation of people of colour in the United States and some parts of Western Europe, the call for decolonisation has assumed renewed importance. From a marginal and often ignored discourse, universities, professional associations and individual scholars have had to engage decolonisation or partake in decolonisation talk. Prior to the renewed prominence of decolonisation, there were initiatives on the African Continent, the African Diaspora and among critical scholars in the North to centralise colonialism in knowledge production and the understanding of global political economy and everyday life. While these efforts have yielded a great deal of important scholarship, the practicalities of doing decolonisation in terms of what is taught, what is the unit of analysis, and who bears what responsibility to rectify absences in the curriculum are still questions that scholars interested in decolonisation are pondering. This panel brings together researchers based in Africa and Europe who have been grappling with what it means to think and do decolonisation in the classroom, in framing research and through writing and public intellectualism. It among other things asks old questions in light of contemporary realities: Why should scholars based in Africa have to cite scholars from the global North for their papers to count as worthy of publication? Why is engaging African scholarly output not a requirement for Northern Scholars writing about Africa? How can this deeply embedded differentiated expectation be remedied? Following Connell (2007: viii) how can scholars in the global North learn “about” the texts of scholars in Africa and also learn “from” such texts?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 8 June, 2022, -Paper long abstract:
Demands for the decolonization of contemporary African scholarship has intensified in recent years, particularly with the proliferation of postcolonial discourse. From an African perspective, this constitutes noble academic advocacy, but in practice, it remains largely wishful thinking. This is because the call for decolonizing African art scholarship is engulfed in varying ambiguities that manifest twofold - on the one hand, African scholars rely heavily on western terminologies and language structures, hence grapple with modalities of how to fully decolonize western text about African art without Afrocentric invented text that will reflect such decolonization. On the other hand, the attempt to problematize western scholarship about African art as the rationale for decolonization has resulted in the debasement of valuable literature needed to foreground new trajectories for contemporary African art studies. Thus, this paper contends that for a practical approach to decolonizing African art scholarship three theoretical frameworks are required - 1) Afrocentric reading of contemporary art by African scholars, 2) Western retheorization of African art devoid of Eurocentric philosophies, and finally, 3) collaborative research between Northern and African scholars which will provide rich perspectives based interdisciplinary studies. This proposal will not only decolonize but enrich African art scholarship from a plethora of theoretical and conceptual perspectives as opposed to propagating a narrow sense of Africaness for the sake of decolonization.
Paper short abstract:
This contribution argues why knowledge production about Africa should not take place outside Africa, which pitfalls lie in supposedly positive approaches to the decolonization of African Studies and which circumstances make the deconstruction of Eurocentric concepts in African Studies so difficult.
Paper long abstract:
There is an epistemological dilemma in the production of knowledge about Africa. Even though the ‘decolonisation’ of academia is one of the most significant scholarly efforts in African studies in the 21st century, we can still see how colonial hegemony is implemented in teaching, research, publication, and thus in any manifestation of knowledge. How can it be that despite various interventions of great scholars such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1986), Zeleza (2006), Comaroff & Comaroff (2012), Mbembe (2015), Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018), in favor of a change in the academic mindset have not yet succeeded?
By drawing on my own experiences as a German Africanist scholar, I intend to show what makes the epistemological transformation process in knowledge production about Africa so difficult. I will illustrate that the dilemma of African Studies is part of fundamental epistemological conflicts: different economies and cultures of knowledge production (Zeleza 2006), the stubborn encapsulation of individual disciplines and their theoretical and methodological foundations from each other, the foolish notion in contemporary academia that ‘only once it’s in a journal, it's real knowledge’, and the obstacles of the provincialization of Europe in the global knowledge apparatus.
I will explain why knowledge production about Africa should not take place outside Africa. In addition, I will investigate supposedly positive approaches to decolonization by pitfalls, in order to finally clarify what makes it so difficult to deconstruct Eurocentric concepts and the associated change in academic thinking and practice.
Paper short abstract:
Questions regarding language(s) of instruction and research have been integral parts of old and renewed debates on rethinking higher education. This presentation interrogates the language question and its ramifications for research and publishing, taking a university in Ethiopia as a case study.
Paper long abstract:
Questions regarding language(s) of instruction and knowledge production have been integral parts of old and renewed debates on rethinking and reimagining higher education. In African contexts, these questions and provocations often consider the status of languages of European origin, such as English on the one hand and that of languages having African roots on the other. However, much of the literature on this topic focuses on teaching and learning, and studies exploring implications for research and knowledge production remain scant. This paper qualitatively and critically interrogates the language question and its ramifications for research and publishing taking a public university in Ethiopia as a case study by focusing on the following research questions:
- What are the perceptions regarding the place of English and Ethiopian languages in knowledge production?
- What challenges are faced, and what epistemic and policy ecologies are required to create multilingual and linguistically inclusive knowledge production and dissemination structures, cultures and platforms?
- How relevant is the decolonial turn as a conceptual tool towards rethinking the language of higher education in the context studied?
Documentary data and interviews with 25 academic staff members and university leaders are analysed to inform the study. In addition to addressing the research questions, the findings empirically shed light on a topic entangled with theoretical debates related to two distinct but overlapping developments in global higher education- internationalisation and decolonisation.
Keywords: Language, English, Higher education, Knowledge production, Research, Decoloniality, Ethiopia