Epistemology and Kinship: Reading Resistance Literature on Westernised Education

Lou Dear

doi:10.16995/olh.123

Abstract

This article compares narrative encounters with Westernised education from a variety of contexts. In particular, I highlight how the authors Chinua Achebe, Mongo Beti, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o develop an epistemological critique of Westernised education. They do this partly by depicting the way such schooling breaks the bonds between individuals and their kinship groups and by describing different ways of knowing. This article makes a contribution by considering narratives written in the period following national liberation struggles, which are also referred to as resistance literature, in the context of contemporary debates around higher education. This article stimulates thinking on how an imperial education and colonial epistemologies impact individuals and their kinship groups.

Highlights

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I knew in my heart that Victoria College had irreversibly severed my links with my old life [...] we all felt that we were inferiors pitted against a wounded colonial power that was dangerous and capable of inflicting harm on us, even as we seemed compelled to study its language and its culture as the dominant one in Egypt
My intention here is to honour Harlow’s analysis, noting the power of resistance literature to analyse power relations, which sustain a system of domination; and to identify strands of critique, which will assist the analysis of the perceived demise of Westernised education (Readings, 1997; Docherty, 2015)

Summary

Lou Dear

This article compares narrative encounters with Westernised education from a variety of contexts. I highlight how the authors Chinua Achebe, Mongo Beti, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o develop an epistemological critique of Westernised education They do this partly by depicting the way such schooling breaks the bonds between individuals and their kinship groups and by describing different ways of knowing. My intention here is to honour Harlow’s analysis, noting the power of resistance literature to analyse power relations, which sustain a system of domination; and to identify strands of critique, which will assist the analysis of the perceived demise of Westernised education (Readings, 1997; Docherty, 2015) To this end, I recall the writings of Achebe, Beti, Dangarembga, Kane, and Ngũgĩ and their epistemological critique of Westernised education. How have the epistemological concerns highlighted by these authors changed with respect to Westernised education, in the contexts these texts were written, and further afield? On re-reading these texts can we further reflect on a Westernised education, ‘social mobility’, individual versus community empowerment, elitism in higher education, the privileging of knowledge systems and the annihilation of others?

Westernised education and the fragmentation of kinship bonds

An epistemological analysis of the impact of Westernised education

Clashing epistemological systems and the breakdown of kinship bonds

Conclusion