Towards a Socially Just Pedagogy: Seminar by Jonathan Jansen, Senior Professor at the University of the Free State

Blog Post by Najma Agherdien, Roshini Pillay, and Puleng Motshoane

Johnathan Jansen

The title Can the institutional curriculum be untaught? Facing the complexities of teaching for social justice in the post-apartheid university suggested that we are on a slippery slope: it is up to u
s to make a difference. The talk provided by Jansen was enlightening but somber and at points felt like we were sitting around the kitchen table listening to an elder question the state of affairs. But this is not so, Jansen is an academic who has grappled directly with issues of transformation in Higher Education (HE), had literally gone away (to the United States) to think and write and has now returned to his hometown, Cape Town. What his talk did highlight for us were some of the contradictions that underpin many of the discussions around the #decolonising, #coloniality #social justice debates. We’ll touch on some of these in this blog entry.

The seminar was well attended

Jansen began by saying that the things that he does not enjoy include unreason and being disrespectful of knowledge. He then goes on to say that the Higher Education sector is in trouble. He sees the student uprising (#RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall) as more an issue of apartheid than colonialism or decolonizing the curriculum. He condemns the associated student violence in the strongest terms and says: “We cannot destroy on Friday what we will need on Monday”. A tension here is how does one separate the one from the other? Is decoloniality not part of the struggle (or movement) against apartheid? Also, while we agree that the violence cannot be condoned, a more balanced view of student uprising would have been helpful. Globally, students have been struggling to make their voices heard (e.g. #blacklivesmatter) and are crying out for help against institutions, governments, societies that exclude and are alienating. More of these contextual issues needed to be unpacked and the talk would then have been more balanced.

He sees himself as playing a critical role - that of a social scientist who questions the truth value, especially the language of decolonization - and notes that there has been poor use of the word. Decolonization as described by Fanon (2008) who was referring to a post-colonial period is not well understood today. Thus, he is of the view that this term is misunderstood as well as the term “radical economic transformation”. He worries that decolonization is used as a word for every problem and therefore has lost its meaning. He further suggests that the meaning of terms (in general) need to be unpacked and understood. For us, what needs to be added here is: who gets to define it and to what/whose benefit? Who decides how we should think about decolonizing apartheid/transformation?  In other words, inherent power issues need to be part of this debate. 

Schooling

Many students who enter higher education have emerged from a hugely dysfunctional schooling system and trying to teach within this environment is problematic. He makes a distinction between the terms colonialism and bad teaching and learning and poor assessments as a result of the apartheid project.

He provided an example of the teaching he had observed at a public “mud school” in Worcester in the Western Cape and noted that there is “far more excitement at a funeral in the Cape Flats” than in the classroom. Thus, he was invited to teach Grade 8 students about light refraction. He took up the challenge and what he learned from this experience was that it was difficult to teach learners who do not have the background knowledge of the subject matter. He came to the realisation that in under-resourced schools “every act of teaching is a compensatory act because the students were not taught the basics. This problem continues in higher education where the students are still struggling and hence they think that decolonisation would be a solution. We think that more than compensatory approaches, the issue of resistance to curricular transformation need to be tackled as a matter of urgency. We agree with Jansen that some/most public South African schools are not functioning well or are in crisis. However, such blanket statements need further debate. We would invite further discussions on what can practically be done at individual, institutional and also an African continental level to address these challenges in a constructive manner. What professional development opportunities and disciplinary training are teachers exposed to? How can we cultivate socially just spaces that allow students and teachers to be who they are, embrace what they bring with them and foster a sense of belonging?

The University

The role of the university, Jansen argues, is to advance or add to the body of knowledge. He makes the case for a need to change the meaning of the experience – the policies, rules, regulations and the routine of the university. This he calls the exoskeleton. He questions why outdated curricula, pedagogical approaches and behaviors (the endoskeleton) are left intact. The rules and regulations that transform the knowledge of the institution are important. He is of the view that only the exoskeletons of HEIs have changed but the soft, sensitive endoskeleton remains. It is precisely here where disruptive change is needed but he remarks that it is the exoskeleton that protects the endoskeleton. Hence, the call is for institutional curricular reform as opposed to individual curricular reform. He feels that if the latter is targeted, efforts are not sustainable. 

He reflected on his experience at the Free State Council Chamber where many framed pictures of old, serious-looking white men were up on the walls and he questions the impact of this on a young black person within this space. He says that in his capacity as Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State, he removed most/all these paintings. However, most have been put back after he left.  

Jansen says he has asked many students from the rest of Africa why they attend South African institutions and they have told him that their universities were destroyed. He added that South Africa is going this route and the wealthy will send their children to study in the developed countries. Highly rated academics are already leaving and he has written references for them on a weekly basis. He noted that countries such as Canada are offering immigration packages to top professors. Jansen noted that South Africa is not any different from other countries where the middle class is required to cross-subsidize the lower class.  

A clear contradiction that emerged from the university regarding institutional curriculum/ social justice discussion was, for us, the individual (self-serving) vs socialist values and ideals tension. What role does the academic play in furthering decolonialty and social justice? If the role of the university, as Jansen argues, is to advance or add to the body of knowledge, who should produce this knowledge and to whose benefit?

Language

Jansen notes that Afrikaans was only contested in Johannesburg during the 1976 student uprising because they did not understand how the language evolved in South Africa.  For him, it is his mother’s tongue. He questions why there are no debates regarding the use of English. He argues that the real language issue recently was students being given different information by the same lecturer to predominately black students in English compared to mainly white students in the Afrikaans classes. Thus, the problem was that Afrikaans speaking students were advantaged over non-Afrikaans speaking students. 

There was some discussion on the contested view between English and Afrikaans language. Jansen added that there is much complexity and recommended we watch the movie “Victoria and Abdul”  https://youtu.be/BT2Ph_9bGPs to provide another example of how complex the issues are. A University of Johannesburg (UJ) lecturer questioned the stupidity of the language policy and asked why we provoke students. She noted that policies can be alienating and offensive and asked where the faculty voice is in such matters.

We agree that the language debate certainly is very complex and warrants further discussion. For example, Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1986, p.390) argues: 

Language as communication and as culture are then products of each other. Communication creates culture: culture is a means of communication. Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world. How people perceive themselves affects how they look at their culture, at their politics and at the social production of wealth, at their entire relationship to nature and to other beings. Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world.

Questions that come to mind are: Whose culture are we carrying? What does the adoption of English as medium of instruction say about our place in the world?  If language is inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings, are we not alienating ourselves from ourselves and how could we recognise and address this in our institutions?

The Q&A Session

Jansen stopped and invited questions and noted that his purpose was to disrupt thinking. There was some discussion about how decolonization of the HE institutions are occurring.  Mention was made of a scoresheet developed at UJ as part of the decolonization project which allowed educators to indicate progress being made.

A UJ professor questioned the set of breaks (obstacles) regarding conception and approach and how the curriculum should be delivered. He refers to these as epistemological breaks and questions the apartheid/colonialism distinction. Jansen responded by saying that the concepts are different and interrelated. For example, in the University of the Free State, English is never questioned but Afrikaans is always questioned. He questions why the debates on decolonization are not happening at UniVenda and other historically disadvantaged universities.

An educator in educational psychology at UJ spoke about her lack of confidence regarding challenging Western normed psychometric tools. Jansen inquired about the actual aspects of the test that were problematic and rather provocatively suggested that she get her PhD and do Post Doc work on developing indigenous theories. He seemed to be suggesting that she will not be taken seriously unless she gets her PhD and starts publishing.  He questioned why we were silent and calls on all young Black academics to get their PhDs and advance the scholarship, redefine the curriculum, as it were and become the authoritative voices. 

Final word

We do not agree with the view that the United States/West is great, South Africa (SA) is bad narrative. Jansen says that SA will be left with mediocre academics who are unable to question the status quo or even provide powerful knowledge for their students. He maintains that the difference between Trump and Zuma is that the Americans will self-correct and South Africans will not. Could it be because Jansen studied at Stanford that he articulates such strong criticism about the South African education system? We feel that without hope, we have nothing. We agree with Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of hope which states that… “Without hope, we are hopeless and cannot begin the struggle to change” (p.8).

Despite all the doom and gloom, Jansen noted that he was invested in the country hence, he came back and he has a responsibility to be critical and thoughtful. In highlighting some of the tensions that emerged from Jansen’s address, we have actually taken up the gauntlet, to be critical and thoughtful, or rather, we hope we have been. While many of the examples given by Jansen were his own experiences and not based on solid research, he noted that these experiences are potential powerful entry points. We agree and value his contributions. As novice academics and scholars, we are struggling to make sense of it all, but wish to follow - and contribute to – the ongoing #decoloniality #socialjustice #transformation narrative.

The authors of the post from second left: Puleng, Najma, Roshini 

References
Fanon, F. (2008). Black skin, white masks. London: Grove press.
Freire, P., Freire, A. M. A., & Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Gobodo-Madikizela, P. (2003). A human being died that night: A South African story of forgiveness: Houghton Mifflin.
 wa Thiong'o, N. (1986). Decolonising the Mind The Politics of Language in African Literature - Studies in African Literature Series. Available from https://archive.org/stream/DecolonisingTheMind/Decolonising_the_Mind_djvu.txt  Accessed on 18 October 2017

Book Review: Curriculum Epistemicide: Towards an Itinerant Curriculum Theory

Curriculum Epistemicide: Towards an Itinerant Curriculum Theory. By João M. Paraskeva, 2016, Routledge.

Hard Cover.

On reading the title, "Curriculum Epistemicide", I was very excited to obtain this book as I had recently read work by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and enjoyed his concept of 'epistemicide', which has to do with the way practices and knowledges are destroyed by hegemonic western epistemology. I am hoping to write a book bringing together writing on decolonisation and social justice with writing on learning and teaching, thus the attraction of the title of this book. The book has been quite a disappointment. Firstly, it is very tortuously written, which many complex passages. Secondly, the argument in it, 'towards an itinerant curriculum theory' is not well advanced at all, and the book seems to contain little at all that is original. I will come back to this point. Thirdly, it is not particularly well written, and is badly edited or not edited at all, thus it has lots of grammar mistakes, some even in the many passages that are cited from other works. I have always held books in such high esteem, and have seen the idea of writing a self authored book as a privilege. This book, especially coming out of the Routledge stable, where hard covers are so expensive especially for South Africans, has dented my awe somewhat.

The one value of this book arises out of its weakness ie its reliance on the writings of others. It traverses a huge range of writers from the critical theory paradigm to decolonisation and decoloniality. If one has not read much of this terrain, this book can serve as a helpful whip around. Authors cited include: Henry Giroux, Slavoj Žižek, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Walter Mignolo, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Michael Apple, Ramon Grosfoguel, Amilcar Gabral, Antonio Gramsci, William Pinar and many, many others. There are many authors cited from South America and Africa, as well as the United States and Europe, testifying to the notion of an ecology of knowledges and hybridity rather than ghettoising knowledge. The book has a fairly 'balanced' approach and does not advocate essentialising or romanticising indigenous and other knowledges. Interestingly, it cites writers on the writing of Karl Marx, most notably decolonial writers, that Marxism should be incorporated in a decolonial conception, rather than the other way around.

Decolonizing the Curriculum: Workshop at the University of Johannesburg

Cheryl Hendrick's opening address

A successful workshop was held at the University of Johannesburg on 24 May 2016, on the subject of decolonizing the curriculum. There were over 60 attendees from eight of the nine faculties as well as members from the Academic Development Services and Academic Planning. A more detailed report is at the end of this posting and two slide presentations are posted below. The debate was lively and there was clearly a passion for the topic amongst many there, as well as a sense of lack of clarity from some quarters, about what we are doing, or about

Vanessa Merckel spoke about the pedagogical implications

how we understand colonization in the first place.  Cheryl Hendricks, chair of the decolonising the curriculum task team, gave a very useful lead-in presentation. Each faculty present shared what they are doing, and it is clear that there have been many discussions, some formal and some informal, about how to decolonize the curriculum. There were also examples of good practice, for example the need to engage in discussion with students in smaller groups, to give a greater variety of voices to emerge. Points made repeatedly were that this is not just about changing content, but about power relations as well. Many felt strongly that the issue of global competitiveness and chasing global rankings inhibits the decolonization process. Many of the colleagues also made the point that to decolonise the curriculum requires engagement with other role-players, especially the international professional  associations that have a strong influence on some of the more professionally-oriented programs, but in addition, with community members or workers.

Hendricks workshop on decolonising the curriculum may 24 2016 from Brenda Leibowitz

An issue that was returned to many times in the morning, is that 'local' and 'contextual' applies just as much to engineering and accountancy as it does to the humanities, and some wonderful examples were given for example of how even something like a turnstile is typically designed with a certain prototype (white, male) in mind. The issue of race and color came up, with some saying that we should be prepared to talk hard and robustly with others, and others saying that referring to race makes it personal. We should be able to participate in robust debate and hear comments about the evils of the past and present institutioal practices, without taking them personally. Likewise there was a discussion about the fact that this is not an easy conversation, and one should be prepared for tension and contestation. The group were asked whether they think some kind of guiding document would be useful, and it was interesting that many participants indicated that this would be useful, although what exactly the shape such a document would take, is not clear, since there is a permanent tension between 'decolonizing' and unwittingly returning to colonising behaviour. In an interesting  presentation by Bongani Mashaba from academic development, he shared his own previous experiences as a student from Mpumalanga. He was affirming a point made by several students in previous forums at the university, that  much of the current unease from students is about a lack of recognition of who they are and what they experience. Further meetings at the University will be to generate a Charter, and views of this workshop were recorded to inform future processes.

Van rooyen decolonising the curriculum may 2016 from Brenda Leibowitz

Here is a more detailed report on the workshop, by Razia Mayet:

UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG

REPORT ON WORKSHOP ON DECOLONISATION OF THE CURRICULUM

Tuesday 24^th May 2016

SESSION 1 : Setting the Scene

Cheryl Hendricks and Brenda Leibowitz opened the proceedings. They set the scene with the following reminders.

1.     That there was no set definition of decolonization. That the definitions were wide and varied and encompassed everything from social justice, black thought, indigenous knowledge, Africanisation, social justice and many others.

2.     That the terrain is deeply contested and deeply political; and that even the process has been likened by some colleagues to a type of colonization.

3.     That we must all ask ourselves whether we want to be here. It should be a collective move and is preferably not one where people are doing it out of compliance.

       1. That there are no templates on how to do it.

 2. That there was a nationwide drive to start the conversation but there was also contestation     

       about who owns these conversations.

 3. What is becoming clear is that decolonization intrudes into the terrain between the

       individual academic and what is being taught. How can we as lecturers influence that private             space?

  4. At the outset we know that  there is no straight road and it is not always an easy discussion.     The   debate is vibrant in all South African universities and faculties.

OVERVIEW OF THE WORK OF THE TASK TEAM

Cheryl gave an overview of the work of the Ad Hoc senate task teams on the decolonization of knowledge. (Refer to power point presentation for details)

4 task teams were formed. They are tasked with the following:

Diversity ; institutional culture and tradition

Decolonization of knowledge

Protest and academic freedom

Promotion of staff and student access

The task teams have hosted a series of panel discussions that address the meaning of, and methodology for, decolonizing knowledge, teaching and learning at UJ.   5 panel discussions were planned:

What do we mean by decolonization of knowledge?

 Is knowledge universal?

Best practices for the decolonisation of knowledge

The relationship between and social justice and decolonization

 The thorny issue of language usage at universities.

The intention was to have as wide a debate as possible on these issues at the university (at all the campuses). But, these have primarily been attended by students and so they remain the ones who are engaged on the topic, yet it is academics that have to be at the forefront of changing their curricula. This disjuncture between student demands and  the extent of the staff response does not bode well for the university. Academic staff are urged to attend and participate.

In the ensuing discussion by the attendees, the following points were raised.

·       Is the decolonization debate only for academics? What about non academics and support staff?

·       Have the panel discussions been documented? How does one access them?

·       Thinking should go beyond student/ teaching/learning. How do we challenge current thinking?

·       No one owns the debate, but the former colonized have the first word and should be listened to

·       Globalization does not equal excellence. This must be interrogated. Rankings are part of the colonial experience.

·       Do we understand what we are decolonizing? As higher education institutions started moving towards transforming, they lost sight of certain important things and thus students are protesting.

·       Decolonization is a very broad concept and different people have different understandings of it.

·       At UJ, what are we decolonizing to? Is there a roadmap?

Cheryl responded by reminding the delegates that the Decolonization Task Team was in the process of developing a charter. The charter will be the initial roadmap/principle. The charter will represent the academics, workers, support staff and students. There will be planned workshops for academics on pedagogical and epistemological concerns linked to the curriculum. We would like to share experiences, understand challenges and concerns and develop a set of guiding principles and values to underpin our academic endeavour. We want to raise the issue of ‘how did we get here’, and ‘ what do we need’ and ‘how to get there’. All of this will happen on all four campuses.

 She responded to the other issues raised by saying:

The point is raised that we the children of the decolonised should be leading the debate. But we should be listening as well. The issues are not new. They are being raised since the 70s and 80s.

Africa is part of the global. Why do we see the debate as Africa vs the Global?

Africanization does not exclude the world.

What are we decolonizing to? Well we in South Africa have a different type of decolonization. We relate more to the Latin American thinkers who think in terms of coloniality. It encompasses all social relations, attitudes, behaviour, and as Ngugi says, the decolonizing the mind.

SESSION 2 : FACULTY INPUTS ON DECOLONISATION OF KNOWLEDGE

FEBE

The FEBE rep started of by saying ‘Gravity is Gravity” and ‘Science is Science”. He said there was an urgent need for students to feel ownership of the curriculum. The inherent conflict remained as the “ local vs international”. Engineering SA is a signatory to National and International Engineering bodies. There was unstructured debate with faculty members and student representatives. There was also a need to engage with industry partners and advisory boards. An essay competition was planned on decolonization so students could engage with the topic and staff could look for patterns in what students are saying. Febe doesn’t feel the need for a universal road map, but some snippet and more open engagement was needed.

FEFS

A committee has been constituted to give feedback on what the rest of the university is doing.

The questions that need to be asked are  Is Economics universal?

Is there an African way of looking at this?

 The Department of Accounting is revisiting its strategy and re-looking at their research options.

The Faculty is open and willing to learn

HUMANITIES

The faculty held a full day of engagement and are in the process of inviting guests to engage them further. It is not formal, but meetings are taking place about the way forward. Staff and students must engage on a broader level. There is a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty among students.

The way forward that is envisaged is how to channel the informal meetings and marginal voices into the larger stream of the debate.

SCIENCE

There was discussion around the issues but students were not fully aware. The Geography lecturer  offers room for research around these issues. The Deans Committee meeting in August will take it forward to the 13 departments in Science. With regard to the way forward, Prof Ballim has been invited to faculty board meeting to raise further issues for discussion.

EDUCATION

Decolonization is regarded as a very important issue in the Faculty of Education, as a turning point in history. In 1994 universities restructured. But now in 2015 the students have expressed their concerns. The faculty has pursued discussion and participated in Teaching and Learning activities with academics from other institutions, for example Andre Keet from UFS who presented an insightful discussion on “knowledge systems as othering”. The SOTL for social justice group meeting/seminars have been held over two years. A meeting was arranged with a student group called “Black Thought”. Odora Hoppers engaged some staff in a discussion on cognitive justice. It is a global challenge. Discussion was taken to a conference in Europe. Students are engaged in discussions on Human Rights and Social Justice on excursions. Study Guides are revised and readings are more authentic. Enquiry based discussion is ongoing.

MANAGEMENT

Under and post graduate students are invited to share views. Business Management is concerned about competition and how it could effect South Africa. The discussions are on Pan African vs International universities; Local Excellence vs International Excellence. Business case studies are also reflected. The aim is to show that Africa must not be the ball in the game but the player in the game. Q S Rankings are counter productive.

HEALTH SCIENCES

The main challenge is that Health Science is a very regulated sector, prescribed by both national and international regulatory bodies. Does everything require decolonization? Or is it a about questioning how we implement things and how we communicate and how we teach.?

This debate must represent a way forward. It mustn’t be a ‘flavour of the month’. It must be finding yourself in the domain and examining our mind sets, a Pan African footprint in health.

FADA

The FADA rep started by quoting from the UJ mission statement about being ‘Anchored in Africa’

He spoke of establishing democratically elected Teaching and Learning committees that are democratically elected.

A survey at FADA showed that each department is in a different place. The faculty meeting on 8 June will move the discussion forward. Decolonization and Social Justice cannot be separated. The Teaching and Learning committee is developing FYE and SSE with that in mind. Fees must fall and Decolonization are themes in the 2017 conference. There is a student led panel in FADA, so students will lead the discussion in August. Globalization has to be kept in mind. A question was asked in a forum about why internationally the top schools are all in the UK. A delegate answered that the decolonization debate was more advanced in Europe. This was a serious issue that really needs to be interrogated.

SHARING PRACTICE

Carina van Rooyen

“Anthropology is the handmaiden of colonialism”

Carina said that she is very aware of her privileges as a white South African but was also completely committed to change. She quoted Torres’ definition of Decoloniality  and  Mbembe’s assertion that there were two sides to the decolonization coin: thecritique and the alternative. Ngugi called it a decentering and a recentering.

She quoted Ngugi that decolonization is not a project  of rejecting but redefining.

Four points of departure.

·       Curriculum is not transformational or decolonization, it is reformist or liberal if it is chasing rankings.

·       Decolonization is not an event

·       Decolonisation is about engaging epistemic disobedience

·       Curriculum is a site of contestation

The 3 key aspects were content, structure and process. Content relates to what we do, not just knowledge but values and skills. Syllabi that are designed for apartheid are still in use today. Structure requires us to question  why degrees are structured the way they are and process requires us to question what we inherited. Does it make sense for us here and now? Content and context are related. Contexts vary. There is the ADDING ON APPROACH or CONTRA PUNCTUAL analysis. Knowledge is not a fait accompli but a contested and contextual arena.

Decoloniality is not equal to Africanisation (Fanon). We need to take back our knowledges. There is ‘power to’ and VS’ power over’.

What are the epistemologies and ontologies that inform our curriculum?

Carina referred us to the theory of posthumanism  and to a book on Inter-species collaboration and ecologies. She concluded by saying “Stay with the trouble: the ongoing, the troubling, stay with it”.

Bongani Mashaba

Decolonization is not a final product. It’s not personal. It’s about recognition.S tudents want recognition. We give the impression that beyond western knowledge there is nothing. Yet before 1652 South Africa had a powerful education past and present.

How do we teach the knowledges in our context?

Do we recognize our students’ backgrounds?

How do we bridge our context with the world?

We don’t have to change the curriculum, but we can put it in our own contexts. Interrogate your practice. Does it speak to the students we have?

Vanessa Merkel

Politeness can go into falseness.

These dialogues are painful but we must go on. We have to be argumentative.

Epistemic promiscuity: There is something to be learnt from everyone. Keep looking. Keep asking. It’s messy.

Decolonization is a “becoming”. It’s a journey we have embarked on. There is no roadmap.

We problematise the knowledge of the west but at the same time we should not romanticise Africa. What about patriarchy and heteronormativity?

WHAT’S LACKING

We have an obsession with the ‘cognitive’. What about the discursive, our bodies, our relationships, our hearts? All of these facilitate learning.

Violence and disruption can change things. Look at the nexus between LOVE and REVOLUTION

Assessment is profoundly about decolonization. How we assess is a site of the decolonization debate

Thea De Wet

She was tasked with her unit by the VC to develop a suite of short courses for students that are non-credit bearing, on line and free. Examples are:

Cyber Citizenship

Critical brief history of Southern Africa

African Socio-Political thought in the past 150 years

The Universe, Near us and Far Away; An African view

Where do I come from?

Indigenous Poetry

African Choral Music

Mapungubwe

Sophiatown

Nyasha Mboti

The Science and Economics that we offer perpetuate colonial knowledge systems. We make it seem that there is no other way of looking at the issues. “Who is ‘Joe Omnibus’?” aka the reasonable man. Who is he based on? Is he white, male, middle aged? He gave examples from Engineering for example the design of a turnstile which is designed with a person of a particular height or shape in mind,  the same with the budgeting we teach: how does this compare with the experiences of students regarding the use of money or saving?

We work in paradigms that hide their inherent privilege and racism.

GENERAL DISCUSSION and FEEDBACK FROM ATTENDEES

Group 1

It is important to be familiar with the students’ contexts. Students must bring their knowledges especially the previously marginalised. We have to make Africa matter. Showcase Africa as the place to learn from.

Group 2

We are here in Africa and in universities. We assume that lecturers are teachers. But they are not. They are content specialists. There is nothing wrong with the content of the curriculum. It’s our attitude that must change.

Group 3

Framework for different streams of thinking:

·       Knowledge is never free

·       Relevant examples must be included

·       Do the lecturers have experience of the contextualized knowledges of their students if they come from different backgrounds?

How do we go beyond the book when we don’t have the experience?

Should students dictate the content?

Student engagement – where must their voices be heard?

Science has limits away from popular epistemologies.

Contextual knowledge is a low level skill. What about abstract knowledges?

 Group 4.

Whatever knowledge one has is context-based. Theory informs practice informs theory.

Knowledge is not only specialized. What about anecdotal evidence?

Group 5

Contextualising in the class is a challenge as the classes are so diverse.

Our engagements are not reflected in our assessments.

Cultural sensitivity is important.

Group 6

Represent contexts.

Scientific terms vs the vernacular language is an issue.

Humanities vs Hard Science is another issue,

Group 7

We agree about cultural sensitivity.

Scientific terminology and hiding behind these principles is cosmetic.

“Othering”

Decolonization seems revolutionary.

 Which sensitivities and sensibilities must be molly-coddled and which must be broken down violently?

When you take students on the knowledge journey a transfer takes place. Students experience it and then make it their own.

Decoloniality is not polite, it’s uncomfortable. It’s rage. It’s emotions. It’s discomfort.

WRAP-UP  by Cheryl Hendricks

“Whoever is in the room are the right people to be here”

We are undertaking this to learn and share and develop

We hope that these discussions will be a triggerpoint for you to move ahead.

ENGAGE                  ACT                    TRANSFORM

Razia Mayet

Achille Mbembe on Rhodes Must Fall, Decolonization and the Pluriversity

Achille Mbembe from the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (Wiser) gave a series of talks   entitled "Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive". My friend Viv Bozalek drew it to my attention. I think it is wonderful. Mbembe begins the talk  by referring to the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, and says that the need to remove statues of colonizers such as Cecil John Rhodes is obvious, and that what is surprising is that it did not happen earlier. He argues for a new kind of institution in which buildings and public spaces are decolonised, and where there is "democratisation of access". Here is one of my favorite sentences:

We need to reconcile a logic of indictment and a logic of self-affirmation, interruption and occupation.

- And relevant for our focus on a socially just pedagogy, he does on to say, "This requires the conscious constitution of a substantial amount of mental capital and the development of a set of pedagogies we should call pedagogies of presence". I will quote a bit more, rather than to cannibalise what he has written: "Another site of decolonization is the university classroom. We cannot keep teaching the way we have always taught. A number of our institutions are teaching obsolete forms of knowledge with obsolete pedagogies. Just as we decommission statues, we should decommission a lot of what passes for knowledge in our teaching. ... in order to set our institutions firmly on the path of future knowledges, we need to reinvent a classroom without walls in which we are all co-learners: a university that is capable of convening various publics in new forms of assemblies that become points of convergence of and platforms for the redistribution of different kinds of knowledges."

There is so much more in this very rich talk, about whiteness, decolonization of knowledge, a critique of africanization a la Fanon and Ngugi, epistemic diversity and the pluriversity. The PDF is available on the SOTL @ UJ dropbox folder, and the video of the talk is available in two parts on You Tube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-lU4BCsL8w

- Enjoy!