Attaining epistemic justice through transformation and decolonisation of education curriculum in Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I explore the position that the transformation and decolonisation of the education curriculum in Africa constitute a way of attaining epistemic justice. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s seminal work, epistemic justice is understood as partly residing in the genuine acknowledgement and acceptance of the contribution of the indigenous people of Africa to knowledge generation, and involves the significant presence of their knowledge paradigms in the formal education curriculum presently dominated by Western knowledge paradigms. I present the argument that epistemic justice ought to surpass this parameter and lead to the awakening of the agency of learners, such that they contribute meaningfully to the determination of their own destiny in life. This dimension has been largely neglected, as defenders of decolonisation through transformation are often preoccupied with attaining epistemic justice, that is, recognition and acceptance of the epistemological paradigm of the indigenous people of Africa as one among knowledges that ought to inform the education curriculum in Africa. I propose here that the problem that education suffers in Africa surpasses the problem of exclusion of the indigenous people’s knowledge paradigms, to include, most importantly, how such knowledge paradigms could be of use in responding to their prevailing circumstances.