Pushing against conventions: an African feminist contribution to knowledge-making

ABSTRACT

Knowledge-making in universities is shaped by conventions that neglect and/or suppress less conventional kinds of knowledge that may hold viable solutions to society’s problems. Knowledge always has political interests, and close-up research on knowledge-making can liberate marginalized ideas, by exposing how they push against and beyond conventional perspectives and mutations. African feminist theoretical ideas are used to examine three different platforms for knowledge-making: one research project and two courses that were taught. The African feminist praxis is demonstrated through two main processes – reflection and communal knowledge-making – which infuse the methodology and pedagogy of the three platforms. The article shows how they transgress the conventions to bring about inclusive and generative knowledge-making. They provide strategies for future research and teaching experiments, demonstrating ways in which African Feminist ideas can have transformative effects beyond their own margins.

KEYWORDS:

• African feminisms
• praxis
• reflection
• communal-knowledge-making
• pedagogy

Introduction

The article reflects on and proposes three different knowledge platforms, as praxes of African feminist-inspired knowledge-making. In some ways, all of them transgress some of the conventions around knowledge. For instance, the conventional binary between research and teaching in academia creates a hierarchy that values research over teaching (Chen 2015), while African feminist principles apply equally to teaching and research. The binary between the individual and the collective is a Western and neoliberal idea that singles out individuals for a ‘meritocracy’ that not only fails to acknowledge the ways in which privilege operates, but also negates an African orientation to the collective worldview (Wane 2008, 188). The binary between mind and body neglects and dismisses how knowledge is embodied, and spiritual ways of knowing (Motsemme, Nthabiseng in Wils 2017). The platforms I propose bring together an African feminist theoretical lens, and the methodology, ethics and orientation it inspires. The praxes of these are explored here and signal transferable strategies for future knowledge-making experiments.

Knowledge-making in universities is shaped by conventions that deliberately or inadvertently suppress less conventional kinds of knowledge (McCusker 2017; Moletsane 2015). Moletsane explains that ‘there are various practices that tend to legitimise particular knowledges, rendering them of most worth—while marginalising others’ (2015, 42). I argue that knowledge always has political interests, and close-up research on knowledge-making can liberate marginalized and lesser-known ideas, by exposing how they push against and beyond conventional perspectives. The purpose is to examine the moving parts and minutiae of knowledge-making processes from an insider perspective, to contest what counts as legitimate, relevant knowledge.

A brief critical engagement with literature

The choice of theory is deliberate and political, aligned with Henry’s argument that ‘Black womanists/feminists who write about their classroom practice show that their pedagogy flows out of a political commitment that informs their curricula and classroom interactions’ (2005, 95). Student protests in South Africa in 2015/2016 were a ‘rejection of a “Eurocentric epistemic” which legitimates global northern knowledges at the expense of global southern ones’ (Hlengwa 2021, npn). Knowledge-making (like the mentoring programme that Hlengwa critiques), is ‘embedded within institutional cultures of daily experience’. University cultures are increasingly shaped by a neoliberalism that influences the kinds of knowledge, and the theories, that are valued, published and taught (McCusker 2017), and even affects the operation of activism against its values. Ahikire argues that over the decades, in pockets of collaborative resistance and sisterhood, African feminist struggles have brought about gains across the continent in a number of areas, ‘including governance, health, education and domestic relations’ (Ahikire 2014, 9). However, she argues that these gains become their own nemesis, because struggles for liberation and justice become sanitized and mainstreamed, emptied of political content in a neoliberal dispensation. The decolonization of the curriculum (a powerful motivation for 2015/2016 student protests), is a deafening silence of actual African feminist voices. In my experience for the last 12 years of teaching in learning in a South African university, they are largely missing from the theorists we read and use and quote and reference in our curricula and articles. They are missing from what is usual and conventional in many universities.

African Feminisms overlap with other critical feminisms. As McCuster points out, feminist pedagogy is interested in ‘effecting social change, redefining pedagogical power and authority, valuing personal experience, diversity and subjectivity, reconceptualising classrooms as spaces for social justice’ (McCusker 2017, 448). In addition to this, African feminisms foreground ethical, spiritual, collective approaches to knowledge-making in diverse ways and promote principles that do not align with colonial, neoliberal, patriarchal, individualistic practices that continue to influence how we make knowledge in universities (see Moletsane 2015; Tamale 2020). There are a variety of ideas, orientations and methodologies under the umbrella of African Feminism (see Mekgwe 2007; Nkealah 2016). Despite its heterogeneity, there are enduring principles that thread through various versions of African feminist thought, legitimizing alternative ways to make knowledge. For instance, communal knowledge-making is a sustainable alternative to individualism (Adomako Ampofo 2010; Ntseane 2011). The collective world view dissolves individual researcher aspirations to facilitate a platform where the community devises its direction according to issues that are salient to the collective (Mkabela 2005). Connectedness and relationship are advocated rather than researcher and teacher neutrality (Mkabela 2005; Motsemme, Nthabiseng in Wils 2017). As I will argue, working with a community, rather than in a community, means that the lead researcher/teacher is compelled to constantly navigate power positions to enable the authentic engagement of the community. This is an orientation that is fluidly responsive to context and the people she works with; and thinking in terms of the other as mutually constituted, challenges how we think about personal ambition and achievement as learning or research goals (Collins 2003). As McCuster argues, feminist pedagogy has its challenges, as the lecturer navigates her power and is vigilant about her own positionality. But, as she claims, ‘feminist pedagogy offers opportunities to engage with students in a deeper and more satisfying way’ (McCusker 2017, 456).

Introducing the knowledge-making platforms

The three knowledge-making platforms that are used to expose the workings of an African feminist orientation are all connected in some way to teaching and research. The first platform was established as part of my collaborative and co-designed PhD project (see Knowles 2021) With Dreams in our Hands (WDIOH). The project has been a way to re-connect with former students in a knowledge-making project using values of community, care and recognition. It consists of a group of 24 former UCKAR¹ humanities extended programme students who responded to a call I put out on Facebook in 2020. It has co-devised phases – coming up with topics, responding to them, responding to each other’s work, analysing the submissions and disseminating findings, all undertaken in a collaborative, communal way. It builds on relationships between us that began when I taught them for their first year. Because of Covid-19, Zoom workshops had to replace what could have been in person weekend workshops, challenging how we could connect, find a collective world view and make knowledge that we believe is a significant contribution to how we think about teaching and learning.

The second platform is an African feminist methodology course (AFMC), co-devised and run in 2021 with an African feminist friend and colleague, in response to a call from the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. Our successful proposal asked that we be allowed to invite an equal number of African PhD candidates to the course. The course ran for 5 days, with a 2 h Zoom session each day and an online platform for further engagements, readings and recordings. About 38 candidates attended the course, and the contribution to knowledge-making that emerged from it emphasized the value of shared ideas and communal approaches, amongst people from different continents and disciplines.

The third platform is an unplanned opportunity to teach a Politics 3 course on African feminist theory in 2022, The politics of knowledge: African Feminisms contribution to pedagogy, research and activism (POK). The course was run daily for 7 weeks, with a sit down in person exam at the end of it. The invitation came when the African scholar who was meant to teach it, could not obtain visas in time. Though I had never taught in that discipline or at that level before, I accepted the invitation because it held the potential for me to push myself out of my comfort zone, and to apply the principles of African feminist pedagogy and practice communal knowledge-making in a significant way. This would be attempted with students who, in their final under-graduate year, were experiencing face-to-face lectures for the first time due to pandemic lock-down situations in 2020 and 2021. The course would demonstrate actions beyond the words that exposed the challenges and potentials of African feminist pedagogy with consequences for the students and for me.

In each case, African feminist principles compel a caring, embodied and accountable orientation that goes well beyond the ethical compliance protocols that universities use to safeguard and guide these kinds of engagements. And in each case my social location as a white, privileged woman is deliberately problematized, and requires rigorous reflection.

Principles and praxes of engagement

My struggle and experience with resisting and transforming the problematic conventions of knowledge-making have involved intellectual, emotional and political labour that requires more than identifying what must be changed. It also needs the tools for change, to make knowledge that is generative, liberating and inspiring. It needs acute and constant awareness of the power dynamics at play in research and pedagogy and their institutional arrangements; and it needs the roadmap for a re-orientation, starting with a sense of one’s physical and spiritual location in the journey to transformation and decolonization. In this section, the African feminist principles that frame my analysis of the knowledge-making platforms will be explained and applied. The understanding is that theory does not need to give the answers as much as it must inspire and facilitate different questions, co-produced, inclusive and sustainable. Central to my methodological and pedagogical framing, the process of engaging in ‘decolonial’ research on knowledge-making and pedagogy is as important as the production. The imprint of Western, patriarchal, capitalist ideas that frame so much of what and who and how we teach, and how we conduct research are powerful influences (Chilisa and Ntseane 2010). To counter the perpetuation of knowledge-making that deliberately leaves people out, I use African and Black feminist theory in this case as activism, to subvert, divert and transgress knowledge-making conventions, and generate networks of knowledge-making that make new pathways.

There are many African feminist principles that infuse my teaching and research. In this article I discuss two of these principles to show how I work with them, and to reveal new pathways: Reflection – politics and positionality; and communal knowledge-making – care and spirituality. I reflect here on the theory and praxes of these two ideas on the three knowledge-making platforms introduced earlier, intentionally dissolving the binary between research and teaching as differently valued ways of making knowledge.

Reflection: politics and positionality

The researcher and the teacher in knowledge-making processes have advantages that could manipulate and limit the inclusiveness and authenticity of their work. They work in communities that in South Africa are affected by astonishing levels of inequality (see Knowles et al. 2023b). Because knowledge is not neutral, and because research and teaching are structured and possible within the constraints of a neoliberal arrangement of university protocols and funding (Tamale 2020), it is necessary to expose and navigate the privileges that come with the positions of researcher and teacher, to transform them. Tamale asks us to question: ‘Do the theoretical connotations of the research conducted in your university perpetuate colonial concepts, stereotypes, imaginaries and cover-ups?’ (2020, 277), and she calls for methodology to be ‘conceptualised as a political process, a space in which complex issues of context, voice, ethics and ideological depth are played out’ (2020, 279).

Reflection, as a way of articulating the navigation of power dynamics in academic work, is associated with words. Pedagogy and research are influenced by a ‘dominant culture that values speech over silence, presence over absence’ (Chigumadzi 2021, 228). In academia, we rely on words on the page, words in the interviews, words delivered in lectures. Chigumadzi, speaking of silences and how to hear them, tells a story of a visit to her grandmother with the intention of asking her many questions which would inform her writing. She tells that after a while ‘I decided to put my questions away and just focus on being with her … it was only through this space, a space created by a respect for my grandmother’s silences, that I was finally able to hear her’ (2021, 237). While I discuss acts of reflection in this section, I argue too that reflexivity as a way of being is not necessarily assessable or articulatable, but is as important for knowledge-making. Being reflexive means reading a room, gauging responses, being with, and even the ‘delicate art of storying the silence without speaking over it’ (Chigumadzi 2021, 237). Reflexivity may not be so easily measured, but it gives rise to acts of reflection that are richer for the being that shapes them.

The regular acts of reflection of the researcher/teacher are important for several reasons. Firstly, it is to note how power is distributed based on identity hierarchies that operate in society, the lecture room or in the research community. Race, gender, class, age, language, religion, sexuality, location, education, etc. all have some degree of intersecting currency and traction which affects the dynamics within and between people. As an older white woman on a South African campus, I carry the advantages of age, language, race, education and class amongst others. I am indulged and believed in spaces where a young black woman would find it harder. The inherent and lingering racism that operates in South African universities has commonalities with racism elsewhere in the world. Nyachae (2016) argues that this is complicated by neoliberalist values, and the desegregation and inclusivity practices that make discomfort difficult to express. When class, race, gender, sexuality, religious differences are depoliticized and individualized for compliance with policies that aim to streamline and mask the messiness of difference, people at the intersections of these differences do not necessarily feel legitimacy to articulate discomforts. Reflection through the lens of African Feminisms is a way to reveal how power dynamics operate in the lecture room, and as hard as it is for lecturer and students, this necessary iterative process allows a conscientization and a vocabulary for noticing and addressing race and gender discrimination. Nyachae explains that this kind of lens and dynamic in the classroom is where ‘Black women can articulate their realities in ways that allow them to simultaneously name and resist their oppressions’ (Nyachae 2016, 791).

The advantages of whiteness in South Africa are an ongoing legacy of apartheid, and are, as Matthews (2012) argues, prone to unconscious, residual ‘stickiness’. And on the continent, Okeke (1996, 227) bemoans the fact that ‘The colonial advantage has long justified white women's dominant presence in the study of African women’, often without an examination of their privileges, or the awareness of who is silenced by their interventions. And Uchendu, Roets, and Vandenbroeck (2019) warn against the stereotyping and reproduction of a Eurocentric notion of difference which locates African women as Other. Regular, purposeful reflection is a way to disrupt this, and is necessary to interrogate my own power, to subvert and redistribute it in pedagogic and research strategies. I have kept journals for the past few years to assist the process of reflection, as a record of my interrogations and deliberations. They are a way to hold myself accountable to a constant and rigorous engagement with positionality.

Secondly, reflection is a way to express, navigate and enhance the dynamic between people and the intersectional power arrangements – in this case students or research community. Depending on how and why communal reflections are solicited, they are interventions to express the silences and unspoken questions and concerns and can guide and shape the ongoing dynamics of a group. As teachers, we are familiar with the purpose of student feedback and evaluation as a reflection to guide further engagements, but unfortunately for many, given the managerial neoliberalism of higher education, these pedagogically useful acts have become co-opted to rationalize course and lecturer conformity and economic viability. In research scholarship, reflection/reflexivity has become compliance exercises to be seen to be doing research the ‘right’ way. Countering these domestications of reflection is vital, as Moletsane (2015) warns us that the tools of participatory research will not work in a transformative way without reflection. She explains that:

what is needed is the co-reflection with our participants on the research process itself, the power dynamics inherent therein, and the extent to which these tools enable us to challenge and address these so as to pave way for democratic decision making about the strategies needed for social change. (2015, 45)

Similarly, in transformative, transgressive pedagogy, it is necessary to make space for the mutual accountability of teachers and students (hooks 1994). Henry (2005, 95) argues that Black feminist pedagogy insists on the analyses of mutually constituted constructions of race, class, gender, etc., because they ‘show us how these social and historical positions are present in the classroom and need to be addressed in our relationships with our students’. My experience in teaching and research has taught me that mutual reflection on the intersecting issues of race, class, gender, etc. leads to a sense of recognition and belonging – without this reflection, whether informal or formal, we miss the opportunity to connect across differences. Regular reflection is the political imperative that will allow the ongoing questioning, challenging and negotiation of positionality for teacher and student, and researcher and research community. For all three of the platforms described above, I used mutual reflection to keep the knowledge-making platforms open to critique and direction.

Finally, as Adomako Ampofo suggests, regular individual and communal reflection is important to keep one’s strength, as a feminist activist and scholar. It is not easy work, resisting conventions, paying attention, picking battles, on top of the usual ‘exigencies of life’ (2010, 28) that can derail one’s motivation. The praxis of African feminist methodology and pedagogy is a continuous process of co-operation, compromise, mediation, intervention, diplomacy and activism. Reflection is a way to generate the energy that this requires. I am unceasingly grateful for and held up by the friendship of African feminists that sustain us in the push against conventions, as we unpack and celebrate the struggles and triumphs together.

Applications of reflection

In the WDIOH research project, I asked those who had responded to the open Facebook call to submit questionnaires which told me where they were, what they were doing, and why and how they wished to be part of the project. It was important for me to establish this kind of regular reflection and feedback which would be a vital part of the project. The written reflection gave me a sense of the range of experiences and people who would form part of the 2-year process, and what their motivations were. This could guide how I interacted with them, and make provisions such as data to encourage their full participation.

We had our first project interaction on Zoom (because of Covid-19 shut-downs), a far inferior platform than the in-person weekend workshop that was anticipated in the project proposal. I was humbled by and devastated at how cold and difficult that meeting was and unpacked my impressions in my journal, and with a critical friend. I sent an apology to the Facebook group, sharing my embarrassment at how badly it had gone (for instance, the long silences as I tried to fix tech issues and admit members who were struggling to connect, etc,). One of the participants replied

Don’t be too hard on yourself, CK. We’re all trying to adjust to this virtual world, so it’s okay if you felt that way. It will get better though. From my perspective, I think the workshop went well. I have no doubt that this, our project, will be a success. Love and light. (with many heart emoji responses from the other participants)

I loved that the tables had turned in terms of power dynamics – here the participants and former students were encouraging me to keep positive, and allaying my fears about the use of technology which came more easily to some of them. They all expressed their wish to continue with the project and their belief in its goals in the follow-up questionnaire.

We met every 2 months with smaller workshops, where we always began with a question about our well-being and ended with a reflection on where we were going. These virtual reflections, as well as ongoing written reflections and personal messages, helped us to keep negotiating power dynamics as the project progressed. Being aware of the power differentials between me and my former students, and how different our experiences of pandemic lock-down situations were, my journal reflections were and are what Naidoo calls ‘a form of autocritique, and in so doing contribute to a more complex practice of fighting oppressive power’ (Naidoo 2021, 254).

In the second knowledge-making platform, the AFMC, I worked on the preparations for and presenting of the course with a Ghanaian friend and colleague, based in Scotland. We reflected together all through the development of the course, and after each of the five sessions we ran online. We asked ourselves: what did we hope to achieve? What does African feminist pedagogy look like? How do we organize each session to demonstrate the principles of African Feminism?

The participants sent applications for the course which gave their fields of interest, and what their interests were in terms of African feminist theory and its application. This would assist us to prepare to speak to the realities in people’s lives, rather than some sort of vacuum; and that we could work with any inequalities and power dynamics as the course progressed. The reflections of the co-presenters each day were important so that we could share our impressions of how things had worked – including the break-out rooms, where many rich conversations were held between smaller groups of participants. We could encourage each other and notice what should change for the next day. The feedback of the participants afterwards in the online feedback form was another important reflection opportunity, where they could articulate what had been meaningful and why, in terms of the process, delivery and content of the course. And always, individual and group reflection was a way to check the power dynamics and ‘stickiness’ of privilege in our relations with each other.

The third knowledge-making platform, the Politics 3^rd year course, was the opportunity to put into practice many of the pedagogic lessons from what I learnt about African feminist principles of engagement in the other two platforms (see Knowles 2021). But it was also challenging in terms of the relative freedom afforded by the other two platforms. In this case, the course outline had to go to the Politics staff committee for approval; an external examiner also perused it, along with the examination questions and marking memorandum; formal assessments, including weekly tutorials, term assignments and examinations would be devised to test students’ knowledge and application; course material and features needed to be loaded onto the university online site. All of these, and what is expected from face-to-face teaching, have conventions that shape student expectations and lecturer possibilities for creativity. Henry claims that ‘the traditional classroom continues to encourage competitive, individualistic, and hierarchical climates with winners and losers; often students become regurgitators, content to figure out how to “give the teacher what s/he wants”’ (Henry 2005, 96) rings true for me and many of my colleagues today. It does not have to be this way, especially when there is a connection established between teacher and students.

In the teaching of a Politics 3 course on African Feminist theory, my aim was to bring the theory closer to the students, so that they could see themselves in it, and find ways to connect theory to life in a transformative praxis. Hames argues that ‘applying a feminist pedagogy when teaching students with whom you are more familiar makes it easier to ask questions about the self’ (2021, 71). I find this to be true of teaching in the Extended Studies (ES) programme where most of my academic teaching takes place. They are a smaller group, I see them every day, I see them individually, and we get to know each other well. We have many opportunities in that group to apply theory to life because we mostly know each other well which arguably is the safe space from which to learn more about self and society. In these classes, regular reflection is undertaken – formal and informal, with the purpose of shaping and adapting our everyday engagements.

In the POK course, I knew very few students, there were 135 compared to 35 in ES in 2022. In my first lecture, I asked them to write down on paper what they knew about African feminism, what they wanted to know, and what they wanted me to know about them. Also, in that lecture, I told them a little about myself – not only my research interests and academic profile, but also for instance that I had recently become a grandmother, and that my mother was dying with dementia, and that I felt stretched and enlarged by these love relationships in my homelife. I told them that I acknowledged that they too brought other selves into the classroom and I wanted to honour that they are more than the essays that they hand in as course requirements, but real people with complex lives. Their initial reflections confirmed this: on slips of paper, many of them told of their anxieties about the workload, about face-to-face lectures, about communicating with lecturers, about things that were happening in their ‘private’ lives. It set the tone for how I should work with them. After every lecture and between lectures students from this group felt free to carry on the conversations with me in my office or outside the lecture room, begun in class that day or in that first reflection. Most of them had never heard of African feminism before. Nnaemeka (2005, 56) argues that ‘one can teach as an outsider, but to do so requires the humility that is grounded in knowledge’. In addition to this, as a white woman teaching a Black theory, I needed to regularly disrupt the conventional power held by white people in South African universities by asking the students to explain things. I problematized my whiteness by admitting what was difficult for me as a white person, such as the collective world view common in African societies. I was open about my own experiences and invited theirs, which they were surprisingly willing to share.

Apart from the first lecture written reflection, and the sense of open reflection in lectures, there were two further opportunities for written reflections: one after 2 weeks of lecturing and the final one at the end of the course. In each of these cases, an online platform was established for anonymous participation, and once students had completed the questionnaire, they could view what others had said. In the first reflective questionnaire, the questions aimed at finding out how students were navigating the lectures, slides, tutorials and the online platform. It helped me to see their struggles, and what might be limiting their engagement. As with their first reflection, I gave feedback to them about what their colleagues had said anonymously, to alert them to a sense of community. The final reflection was a more in-depth set of questions requiring their deep reflection on what they had learnt, what would stay with them, what remained unanswered.

I have found that acts of reflection, whether in research or teaching, whether verbal or written and especially when committed regularly and authentically, are a useful way to give voice and affirmation to our thoughts and concerns, and in so doing, provide a roadmap to increased relevance going forward. Reflection enhances the capacities of students and teachers, of research communities, to keep navigating the distributions of power in transformative ways. The transformation happens when people feel heard, when their concerns are taken seriously, and when they become subjects, rather than objects or consumers, of knowledge-making.

Communal knowledge-making: love and spirituality

Communal knowledge-making as a transformative orientation in teaching and research starts for me from a sense of purpose and motivation. Why, what and how do I teach? And what is the purpose of the research I undertake? I am inspired by bell hooks’ approach to teaching, where she argues that ‘to teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin’ (1994, 13). And Mkabela (2005) inspires my research, where she argues for the kind of research that works with a community’s total involvement in the project, including its directions and disseminations. She explains that ‘intimacy, trust, and understanding grow where individuals are linked to one another through multiple bonds in a holistic relationship’ (Mkabela 2005, 187).

These are both powerful motivations that push against the conventions of teaching and research ‘careerism’ where Tamale (2006, 39) argues that ‘We sit and strategize not on how to genuinely transform society but on how our positions will benefit us financially’. The individualistic, self-serving focus and ambition of the neoliberal university separates the public from the personal and promotes teacher and researcher ‘neutrality’ as though the bodies and spirits, the values and experiences, that they bring to these processes do not exist. African feminist pedagogy and research practice requires us to navigate spaces of lecture room and research field fully aware of our intentions, just as we are aware of our gendered and raced bodies and the histories that have informed our values. With this self-knowledge, communal knowledge can be facilitated with a transformative purpose.

African feminist knowledge-making is orientated towards a caring relationship with teaching and research communities. It is linked to the ethos of Ubuntu, a relational philosophy in South Africa and other African countries. As Chilisa and Ntseane (2010, 619) clarify, Ubuntu is translated as ‘A person “is” through others’. They go on to explain that ‘This principle is in direct contrast to the Eurocentric view of humanity: “I think, therefore, I am” (Descartes)’ (Chilisa and Ntseane 2010, 619). Collins (2003, 59) explains the limitations of ‘Western, either/or dichotomous thought’, arguing instead for the holism and harmony inherent in the African worldview. She goes on to argue that

Neither emotion nor ethics is subordinated to reason. Instead, emotion, ethics, and reason are used as interconnected, essential components in assessing knowledge claims. In an Afrocentric feminist epistemology, values lie at the heart of the knowledge validation process such that inquiry always has an ethical aim’. (Collins 2003, 66)

The values of care and respect, and the acknowledgement of the interconnectedness not only of the heart with the mind, but also of the teacher/researcher with her students/research community, suggest a different way of working together to make knowledge.

Communal knowledge-making validates ‘the ideology of communal, rather than individual, values and the preservation of a community as a whole’ which is common in African society (Wane 2008, 187). Ntseane found in her research work in Botswana that what worked best was the ‘community construction of knowledge as opposed to an individual’s construction’ explaining that even in broader contexts outside of the continent, the principles of communal knowledge-making ‘can be used to develop transformative learning to theorize and build models of research and learning that are owned by the people’ (2011, 320). This resonates with Mkabela’s claim, that by working closely and holistically with a research community, trust is built and there is ownership of the knowledge that is produced communally (Mkabela 2005, 187).

The knowledge that is produced communally and emerges from a place of relationship and mutual respect is meaningful to the people who work with it. As Henry argues, Black feminist pedagogy ‘underscores the interconnectedness of student, teacher, and the entire knowledge-production processes within and outside of the classroom, as well as the power of pedagogy to change consciousness’ (Henry 2005, 97).

Applying communal knowledge-making

In the WDIOH research project, the people who indicated their willingness to be part of the project did not necessarily know each other. They had all been part of the ES programme in their first year at UCKAR, but this was spread over a span from 2011 to 2019. In our favour for developing a sense of community was our experience in the ES year – the principles of care, respect and connection which operated in how I facilitated those classes meant that for many of us there had been ongoing contact once they completed that class. On Facebook, on campus, and through various ways and degrees of connection, relationship had been maintained with me, at least. But to establish relationships with each other would be a challenge. The breakout room function on Zoom was useful in the first Zoom meeting, and this is where participants came up with topics they would like to address. The switch to smaller online workshops, rather than as a whole group, was another way to be able to see each other’s faces and get to know each other better. I would report back to them as a group what had come up in individual responses and reflections. But when we started to work on the content of the project, I needed to find ways to connect them to each other more decisively.

Topics were chosen from a process of group work on Zoom, and then a survey in the dedicated Facebook group. Each participant was required to respond to one of four topics in any way they chose. Once these were submitted, they were anonymized and sent to two or three others for comment and review. We spoke about the process of writing, and of having their work reviewed in our next workshop. One of their comments² expresses what many felt about this process of diffraction:

The person who commented had similar experiences, for my case it almost felt like I was not alone, and they helped me to kind of somehow elaborate on everything I was saying, because obviously sometimes when you write you not really thinking or you just writing and you trying to make sense, and then someone else say something that just helps you build that idea on your head … like it was almost looking in the mirror but like at the same time, I think there was one particular paragraph and the person looking in the mirror and was like me, but the person was just different. So, I think you also learn to appreciate that regardless of the different side or where they stand, it’s still the same thing going down like we have similar experiences of sort. (Speaker 2, Group 3, workshop 3 WDIOH)

Creating a sense of community is about finding how to connect across differences (Tamale 2006). As a conscious intention in research and teaching, Nnaemeka explains that ‘teaching connections requires that we grasp and teach sameness and difference simultaneously’ (2005, 64). The recognition, care and solidarity fostered by the review of one another’s work helped to establish a sense of community and communal knowledge-making. Another way of building on these connections was the creation of a composite piece from all their submissions. I highlighted one or two sentences from each of the submissions, copied and pasted them onto a page, and then juggled them around to create a two-page narrative that used only their words. I sent it to the Facebook page to show them how their ideas connected across differences and space. Two comments below reflect their responses to this, and demonstrate the purpose and benefits of communal knowledge-making:

It was amazing because when I read those comments, I saw similarities in all of us. When I read, I saw uba (that) I do relate to this and we all relate to those somehow, and then I saw my comment, I was like oh my God you combined my piece with other people’s, and it make sense. (Speaker 6, Group 3, workshop 3 WDIOH)

it was very interesting, yoh! It was very interesting, I’ve gotten to understand that even though we might be in different spaces, but sometimes our struggles however interlink right, so that was the most highlight thing for me, is that our struggles they interlink. And that is what you’ve shown in the African Feminism, that we have a shared … we share struggles and we … you might take a small group, because we are a small group right, but this shows a bigger picture, a bigger spectrum, that these … these things they do happen, and they affect a lot of people, because we are different people. We come from different background. … as I read things that people wrote, I could just like haibo mos (wow), my struggle isn’t different from the other person … it’s really beautiful, and it also shows, you know when you speak of African, anything that had to do with African, it always has a collective … and that takes me back to the narrative of Ubuntu. Because that’s our fundamental theory. It means that, all of the things that we do, are interlinked, no matter how we … where we stay, or how we grew or, but always interlinked. (Speaker 2, Group 1, workshop 3 WDIOH)

The final way of communal knowledge-making with this group was a process of co-writing academic papers. Two teams of volunteers from the group worked online over the course of a year to write two academic articles which are now published (Knowles et al. 2023a; Knowles et al. 2023b). The purpose of the project was to create a platform that centred the voices of students to make knowledge, and communal knowledge-making has been an inspiring and meaningful tool in this process.

The second knowledge-making project, held online across continents over 5 days, also challenged our intentions to create a community. Although we were strangers to each other, we found that by using the break-out room function, a sense of the collective began to emerge strongly. We made sure that there were at least 3 break-out sessions per day – always at the start, to check in with each other and to introduce themselves, and then twice more during each session with a question to discuss. The 10–15-minute sessions were not enough, but worked to establish a sense of community which would continue once the course was completed. Many of the comments in their post-workshop reflections spoke to the benefits of working together in these sessions, and all of them wished the sessions had been longer. One comment echoes what others said:

Yes, I think the networking and hearing about other’s challenges is comforting (sounds terrible but you then realise that you are not alone which motivates you to keep going). We also discussed an alternative research method so there was learning happening in in the breakout groups. (participant feedback)

An African feminist reading group was established by request, responsive to participant reflections, to build on the community begun in the course. This continues to take place every 2 weeks with revolving chairs for each session. The power arrangements that conventionally favour white women over Black women is contested in this group where African women participants’ embodied proximity to the African feminists we read and discuss, distributes power differently. Race hierarchies are diffracted through African feminist principles of care and respect to circumvent the obstacles of othering. Our communal reflections have enhanced our capacities to learn and hold a plurality of experiences and beliefs without hierarchy (Mkabela 2005).

The third knowledge-making project used communal knowledge-making in a few ways. These students had expressed their difficulties with adjusting to face-to-face learning after two years of online learning; they had also expressed that they did not know each other, after being on campus for only one term of 6 weeks before this course. Firstly, I invited the class to set their own tutorial question each week – we discussed it in class each Thursday, after which it was posted onto the dedicated online platform, along with two or three relevant readings. As an additional task (worth 5% of their total mark for the term), they read one of the set readings, reviewed it according to three reflective questions, and submitted it onto the online portal. The portal feature then automatically and randomly sent two reviews to peers, who were asked to comment on these. The benefits of this process were important: it ensured that students had read at least one of their set readings before their tutorials on Monday. It also exposed them to how other students had interpreted the same reading, and how they write and think. Finally, I set a group task as their term assessment, and tutors put them into groups of five based on which tutorials they attended. As much as the students expressed their wariness of groupwork, overwhelmingly their reflections at the end of the process articulated how surprised they were at how much they enjoyed getting to know other members of their class, and how helpful it was to approach the task with the insight and contributions of others. Some even reported that they had made friends from this subject group for the first time in three years. Tutors also reported that there was more active participation in tutorials as a result of both processes – the peer-review process, as well as the group projects. Applying communal knowledge-making in a formal academic course is not necessarily a new idea, but it was new to the students concerned, and enriched their experience of the course.

Communal knowledge-making has the advantage of demystifying the role of teacher, breaking down the barriers to self-knowledge to empower students to own the learning process with more confidence.

Conclusion

I have shown how African feminist-inspired pedagogy and research methodology push against the conventions of Western, neoliberal, individualistic knowledge-making that is common in universities today. It has different principles that shape teaching and research encounters and emphasize connection and mutual respect. It does not separate the mind from the body, but values a holistic commitment to knowledge that is caring and inclusive, emphasizing connection and relationship rather than researcher or teacher neutrality. The article has explained two African feminist-infused techniques of knowledge-making that use these principles: reflection and communal knowledge-making. Applying them to three knowledge-making platforms, I argue that African feminist knowledge-making can be generative and transformative. It inspires the imagination of this teacher/researcher, and the students and research communities that form part of this study. Importantly, it shows that the political choice of an African Feminist framing, and its application and praxis in the methods used for teaching and research, can have a profound impact. Working with the unequal power arrangements between teacher/researcher and students/research community, this study shows a close-up view of how power can be rearranged to bring about new ways of seeing and knowing the self in community with others.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Corinne Knowles

Corinne Knowles has been part of the Extended Studies Unit, Rhodes University, South Africa, since 2009. She teaches Sociology and Political & International Studies Extended Studies courses. Formerly chair of the Women’s Academic Solidarity Association at Rhodes, and active member of various progressive staff collectives over the years, she is a gender and social justice activist. She also teaches courses on African feminist methodology (postgraduate), and Judith Butler’s performance theory (3rd year Drama). Her PhD degree worked with former Extended Studies students to develop a schema for knowledge-making using African Feminist principles. Before entering academia 15 years ago, Dr Knowles was a high school teacher, an NGO practitioner and fundraiser. Dr Knowles has published academic articles, a book of poetry, has written an award-winning play, and has at least two books waiting to be written.

Notes

1 UCKAR: Rhodes University was renamed the University Currently Known As Rhodes (UCKAR) by protesters during the 2015/16 student protests, who called for a name change. In 2018, the Rhodes University Council halted the consultative process around renaming ‘Rhodes’. See Daniels (2015) for the argument to change the name.

2 All comments by co-researchers are used with consent and Ethical Clearance (1476) by Rhodes University.