Critical pedagogy, scholar activism and epistemic decolonisation

Abstract

African universities’ curricula remain largely Eurocentric, and this constitutes a factor in the continuing epistemicide against indigenous knowledge systems. While calls for epistemic decolonisation have highlighted this epistemic violence, the role of African scholars in the actualisation of such epistemic decolonisation has not been sufficiently exposed. This article, therefore, proffers Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy (CP) as a framework for the transformative reconstruction of Western epistemologies in African universities. While Freire’s CP is typically utilised as a pedagogical method through which the teacher stimulates students’ critical consciousness, this article exposes its nature as a means of stimulating African scholars to the critical consciousness of their role in the process of deconstructing epistemic hegemonies. It argues that African scholars have a crucial role to play in epistemic decolonisation – as stimulants through which students learn to be critically conscious and as bastions of ideas and ideals guiding progressive social movements.