Epistemic governance and the colonial epistemic structure: towards epistemic humility and transformed South-North relations

ABSTRACT

Current epistemic governance analyses in higher education ignore systemic power relations between Northern and Southern researchers. This paper does focus on previous approaches to understanding epistemic governance, but rather moves beyond these towards a Southern evaluative and prospective comprehension. The paper is primarily theoretical. We draw on Fricker’s theorizing of epistemic justice, but note the importance of the institutional. Amartya Sen’s  capability approach enables envisioning possibilities for change at individual and systemic levels, placing agency and epistemic freedoms at the centre of epistemic governance to foster solidarity and reflexive actions for change.  To make the case, the paper explores testimonial and hermeneutical (including hermeneutic obstruction) injustices in research, presenting unfair practices and the unjust consequences for scholars in the South arising from ‘the colonial epistemic structure’. The paper proposes that this structure, and its West-centric episteme, shapes epistemic governance which, among other effects, invisibilizes race and racism and is unable to account for the experiences of  Southern subjects. The paper concludes by suggesting that it is a moral responsibility in higher education to exercise reasoned agency to promote equal epistemic opportunities, especially for those situated on the wrong side of the epistemic line. This requires epistemic humility and ethical responsibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic governance
• epistemic justice
• hermeneutic obstruction
• epistemic humility
• agency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation [86540].

Notes on contributors

Melanie Walker

Melanie Walker is distinguished professor at the University of the Free State, South Africa and South African Research Chair in Higher Education & Human Development. Her research interests include higher education, development and social justice, a decolonial development ethics, and inequalities in and through higher education access, participation and outcomes.

Carmen Martinez-Vargas

Carmen Martinez-Vargas holds a Masters in Development Aid from the Technical University of Valencia, Spain and a PhD from the University of the Free State, South Africa where she is currently a post-doctoral fellow in Higher Education & Human Development. Her research interests include: decoloniality, an Ubuntu ethics, and justice-facing participatory methodologies.