Decolonisation as Democratisation

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Global Insights into the South African Experience Decolonisation as democratisation considers three factors that define the debate in South Africa on the decolonisation of the academy: educational aspiration, competing interests and political contestation. The book explores an academic system that attempts to serve two masters, the first being the historical beneficiaries of the academy (i.e. whiteness) and the second being those who pin their hopes on the system in order to escape abjection (i.e. blackness or indigeneity). The book highlights how the recent thrust of decoloniality protects the ideal of academic freedom and presents an argument that this ideal should not be used to protect the interests of the historical beneficiaries.

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Chapter 1: Educational Desire as the South African Epistemic Decolonial Turn

Part I – Concerns of and Approaches to Decolonial Agendas

Chapter 2: How to Decolonise Knowledge without too much Relativism

Chapter 3: Complexities and Challenges of Decolonising Higher Education: Lessons from Canada

Chapter 4: Beyond possession: decolonising the educational relationship

Part II – Philosophical Contextuality, Pedagogies and Decoloniality

Chapter 5: Socratic Social Criticism in Higher Education

Chapter 6: The Anatomy of Epistemicide and the search for Epistemic Justice: Towards a Relevant Education

Chapter 7: Embracing an Ethical Epistemological Approach in African Higher Education

Chapter 8: Decolonisation and Displacement: Mbembe and Decolonising the University

Chapter 9: Funda-mentalities: Pedagogic twists and turns in South African Philosophy (of Education)

Chapter 10: Futurity, Decolonisation and the Academy – Where to from Here?

Afterword

About the authors

Index

Siseko H. Kumalo, holds a Master of Arts (Cum Laude) in Political Philosophy from the University of Pretoria’s Department of Political Sciences. He received his formative training from Rhodes University where he read in Political and International Studies, Anthropology and Philosophy. His research and teaching interests centre around themes of education decolonisation in the South African academe. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Decolonising Disciplines, a journal dedicated to decolonising disciplinary knowledge across faculties in higher education. His research aims to substantively engage Indigenous epistemes in the South African university through focusing on the intellectual contributions of Indigenous intellectuals such as SEK Mqhayi, WW Gqoba and Mazisi Kunene. Siseko serves on the Literary Association of South Africa’s Executive Committee and is a Mandela Rhodes Scholar (2017).

Endorsements

This book makes a timely, insightful, and thought-provoking contribution in the critical debate and discussion on the decolonisation of the academy. The well-argued ideas presented are deeply captivating, challenging, and incisive. I cannot recommend this book strong enough to any scholar or researcher who wants to engage at a deep level with the topical ideas on decolonisation and democratisation of knowledge creation. It is a reservoir of fresh and inspiring ideas.

Sizwe Mabizela, Vice-Chancellor, Rhodes University

In the course of South Africa’s 2015-16 student protests for “a free, decolonized education,” there followed a flourish of publications on decolonization in an effort to make sense of that historic moment on university campuses. Then, few of those rather rushed writings contributed “deep thinking” on this complex subject. Now, with skilful editorship, Siseko Kumalo brings together the best thinking from education and philosophy to explore the vexed question of the decolonization of knowledge in relation to the democratic project. Nuanced, courageous, and always self-critical, this powerful book is unflinching in its treatment of vexed topics in the decolonization debates such as indigeneity, blackness, desire, dogmatism and of course, solidarity. I have no doubt that Decolonisation as democratisation will become a prescribed text in university curricula where its very presence decolonizes taken-for-granted knowledge from our troubled pasts.