On the decolonial turn: African language radio as a conduit for Setswana indigenous knowledge revitalisation on Motsweding FM’s Kgolo programme

Although the school natural sciences curricula in South Africa ask for the inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems in the classroom, it is either done very superficially by providing an example or two, or ignored completely by teachers (Cronje, De Beer & Ankiewicz, 2015). This mixed-methods study (with emphasis on the qualitative inquiry) into the status of indigenous knowledge in the natural- and life sciences classroom in Gauteng, NorthWest, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo provinces in South Africa, once again echoes what Rogan and Grayson (2003) reported: in South Africa the curriculum process focuses too much on the what (the curriculum itself), at the expense of the how (the implementation of the curriculum). Although the progressive curriculum makes it clear that indigenous knowledge should be addressed, it provides very little guidance to teachers on how this should be done. Two problems are specifically highlighted in this chapter: teachers’ lack of pedagogical and content knowledge in addressing indigenous knowledge systems, and their poor understanding of the nature of science (and how indigenous knowledge should be incorporated within this scientific framework). To effectively infuse indigenous knowledge in the school curriculum, effective epistemological border-crossing between indigenous knowledge and Western science is needed in terms of epistemological and ontological considerations, which places demands on teachers’ knowledge and pedagogies. Too often “Western” science and indigenous knowledge are seen as conflicting epistemologies, disregarding the notion of border crossing, or Odora-Hoppers’s (2002) idea of a “postmodern integrative paradigm shift” where indigenous knowledge and Western knowledge systems are seen as complimentary epistemologies. This chapter will elicit the value of indigenous knowledge in the life or natural sciences curricula from the perspective of embodied, situated, and distributed cognition (ESDC). Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) will be used as a research lens (linked to the theoretical framework of social constructivism), in looking at a funded research project, in which natural and life sciences teachers were trained in facilitating border-crossing between indigenous knowledge and “Western” science. This chapter also sheds light on interventions such as Ogunniyi’s course based on contiguity argumentation theory (Ogunniyi & Hewson, 2008), and how such interventions can enhance teachers’ understanding of how the nature of science and indigenous knowledge systems can be better integrated.

There is currently a debate on the role of modern and indigenous knowledge systems in the smallholder farming sector. While the modern knowledge systems have been viewed as superior and are being touted as key towards meeting sustainable development goals, especially goal two of eradicating hunger, the performance of smallholder farmers utilising modern systems remains below expectations. The performance of farmers using indigenous knowledge systems has not resulted in better outcomes either. There are growing calls for an integration of the two knowledge systems to co-produce solutions relevant to smallholder farmers. However, not much is known about the extent to which this is already happening, how the integration is happening, and welfare effects of this integration. This paper assessed the extent to which smallholder irrigators integrate indigenous and modern knowledge; and whether this integration has resulted in improvements in cost reduction, productivity, and welfare levels. A sample size of 392 farmers in four irrigation schemes of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape were interviewed. The results showed that the majority (52%) of the farmers integrated knowledge systems, while 10% and 38% relied on indigenous and modern systems, respectively. Farmers actively incorporated modern knowledge to enhance their traditional practices in their production methods in response to local challenges or opportunities. The results indicate that high maize yields attained by modern users were eroded by high inputs cost, while integrators were able to significantly reduce input costs (such as fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide costs) and the money saved was used to purchase more food, hence improving household food security. The results suggest that government, private institutions and NGOs should build on farmers’ agencies to plug-in modern knowledge into the indigenous knowledge systems through appropriate research and innovations rather than completely replacing indigenous systems with modern farming systems. Extension officers should change their mindset and acknowledge the importance of integrating indigenous knowledge into their training so that what is relevant to farmers may be adopted, thus enhancing sustainability and resilience of development efforts in developing countries.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to assess the digital preservation policies and plans for long-term digital preservation in selected repositories in South Africa, with a view to develop a digital preservation framework for the preservation of Indigenous knowledge system (IKS) in South Africa.Design/methodology/approachThrough the multiple case study research design, data was obtained from eight respondents in four Indigenous Knowledge Systems Documentation Centers (IKSDCs) in institutions that are part of the National Recordal Systems (NRS) initiative across four provinces in South Africa using in-depth face-to-face interviews. Data collected was also supplemented with the content analysis of several policy documents in South Africa.FindingsThe findings reveal that there are no digital preservation policies in place in the institutions, especially long-term digital preservation for IKS. However, some of the institutions are formulating policies that will include the management of IKS collected in the institutions. This study also reveals that digital curation, policy formulation and disaster preparedness plans to some extent are measures said to be in place for the digital preservation of IKS.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focuses mainly on the NRS initiative in South Africa. Indigenous Knowledge (IK) related to traditional medicine, traditional plants and food are currently being digitized at the IKSDCs by IK recorders. This study will help in ensuring that the South African Government’s effort and investment in digitizing IKS and making them accessible online is not wasted. This study will help mitigate the risk of damage and alteration over time, either deliberately or in error.Originality/valueThis study fills a gap in the literature on the digitization and digital preservation of IKS from the context of the NRS project in South Africa. Very few studies have been carried out on the digital preservation of IKS in Africa. This study also proposed a framework for the digital preservation of IKS in South Africa.

This paper explores the Indigenous knowledge, cultural values, and sustainability through the experiences of the Baram and Kumal peoples in Gorkha, Nepal. It examines how their languages, customary practices, and cultural values inform ecological governance, sustainable resource management, and community solidarity. These Indigenous knowledge systems are deeply embedded in language, rituals, and oral traditions, and reflect principles of reciprocity, cooperation, and collective responsibility that sustain both society and environment. Practices such as Parma (labor exchange) and customary forest management demonstrate how cultural values shape sustainable livelihoods. However, state policies, economic changes, and dominant socio-cultural forces such as Hinduization, Sanskritization, and formal education systems have marginalized these knowledge systems, threatening linguistic diversity and traditional ecological practices. Language, as a key repository of Indigenous epistemologies, plays a critical role in shaping concepts of sustainability and environmental ethics. The erosion of the Baram and Kumal languages due to modernization and assimilationist policies risks the loss of invaluable cultural and ecological knowledge. By centering Indigenous perspectives, this paper underscores the need to recognize, protect, and revitalize Indigenous languages and knowledge systems as essential to sustainable development and social equity. It highlights the interdependence between cultural identity, language, and environmental stewardship in the ongoing struggle for Indigenous survival and sustainability.

Indigenous rights, knowledge, and value systems are linked inextricably to the lands, waters, and non-human beings that form the environments of Indigenous Peoples. Across the globe, the rights of Indigenous peoples are being formally recognized and as a result, efforts are being made to include Indigenous Knowledge and value systems in environmental policy and decision making. Scientists and decision makers must not only recognize this reality, but also operationalize these efforts through meaningful changes to create space for the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous values, and sovereignty within the current methods for scientific enquiry and the development of environmental policies. Professionals in the environmental field have a responsibility to ensure that their work has a positive impact on Indigenous Peoples and their environments. In this study, we explore the concept of consultation and informed consent through the lens of the development of environmental policy and decision making. We will discuss these concepts in the context of ecological risk assessment related to a case study focused on contaminated sediment in a harbor within the Great Lakes. We will demonstrate a process that deconstructs the current protocols for risk assessments at sites with localized pollutants in sediment and rebuilds them with elements that recognize both Western and Indigenous knowledge systems. This process includes collaborative fieldwork, relationship building, and informal and formal interviews with participants and community members. By utilizing such approaches, we were able to develop a risk assessment framework that recognizes the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and promotes effective Nation-to-Nation decision making.

Indigenous peoples’ perceptions of wellbeing differ from non-Indigenous constructs. Thus, it is imperative to recognize that Indigenous peoples will conceptualize wellbeing from their perspectives and set their own wellbeing priorities. In keeping with this viewpoint, the aims of the present study were to conceptualize wellbeing and determine what was (and is) important for wellbeing from Canadian Indigenous peoples’ perspectives. In this paper, we take a partnership approach based on the elements of respect, equity, and empowerment. One primary data source and two existing data sources were examined and analyzed thematically utilizing a combination approach of deductive and inductive coding. Indigenous leadership and organizations viewed wellbeing holistically and conceptualized wellbeing multidimensionally. From across Canada, wellbeing was communicated as physical, economic, political, social, and cultural. The scaling of wellbeing represented a collectivist perspective, and land was the connecting thread between all types of wellbeing, being a place to practice cultural traditions, reassert one’s Indigenous identity, find solace, and pass on Indigenous knowledge and languages. Although wellbeing was discussed in the context of the individual, family, community, and nation, wellbeing was most often discussed at the cultural level by regional and national Indigenous leadership and organizations. Even in acknowledging the great cultural diversity among Canadian Indigenous nations, four concordant themes were identified regionally and nationally, with respect to what was important for cultural wellbeing: land and water, sustainability, and inherent obligations; being on the land, and indigenous languages and knowledge systems; sustainable development; and meaningful involvement in decision-making, and free, prior, and informed consent. Taking into account these themes is foundational for any interaction with Indigenous peoples, especially in the context of land, culture, and development. There needs to be a new beginning on the journey to reconciliation with land and cultural wellbeing at the forefront.

Indigenous knowledge, traditional cultures, and many of our past lessons in African countries are slowly fading away as a result of Westernization, globalization, and deterritorialization. Therefore, African indigenous communities need to return to their roots and reterritorialize indigenous knowledge that have lost. This chapter thus examines how reterritorialization and digital preservation can be used as strategies for sharing and safeguarding indigenous knowledge systems among indigenous communities in South Africa. This study critically reviewed literature to investigate best practices and intergenerational strategies being established in South Africa and different parts of the world in the reterritorialization and preservation of indigenous knowledge for the benefits of indigenous communities. The study established that indigenous knowledge owners and their communities do not have mechanisms in place for effective reterritorialization and preservation of indigenous knowledge.

Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge Systems (ITKS) represent cumulative, community - based bodies of knowledge developed through long-term interaction between human societies and their natural, social, and cultural environments. These systems encompass ecological understanding, agricultural practices, healthcare traditions, governance structures, ethical principles, and cultural expressions that emphasize sustainability, reciprocity, and collective well-being. Historically marginalized by colonial and modern scientific paradigms, indigenous knowledge systems are now receiving renewed global attention due to their relevance in addressing pressing challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, disaster risk, and cultural erosion. This article provides a comprehensive examination of indigenous and traditional knowledge systems, exploring their conceptual foundations, defining characteristics, major domains, ethical dimensions, gender roles, challenges, and contemporary significance. It further discusses the importance of protecting indigenous knowledge through legal, educational, and policy frameworks and argues for respectful integration between indigenous knowledge and modern science. The article concludes that recognizing indigenous peoples as equal knowledge holders is essential for sustainable, inclusive, and resilient development in the twenty-first century.

The role of leisure education in equipping individuals and society to participate in leisure is well-researched in scholarship. In this commentary, we argue that incorporating indigenous knowledge systems (derived from South Africa’s (SA) diverse peoples, cultures and languages) in leisure education may promote inclusivity, cultural relevance and alternative leisure perspectives. Drawing from various scholarly perspectives, this article defines leisure education, revisits the concept of leisure, explores the concept of indigenous knowledge systems and presents a case for the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in the SA context. The implications that are drawn from the discussion call for a re-thinking of leisure education so that it responds to SA’s contextual realities through the strategic incorporation of indigenous knowledge. This may contribute towards contextualized leisure research methods, wholesome leisure education content, creative resource-attainment strategies, novel knowledge-transfer methods and unique skill-equipping techniques that may advance leisure wellness, social cohesion and the leisure profession in SA.

This article, using the qualitative research methodology, seeks to highlight, among other discussions, the significance and role of indigenous African languages using the South African context as a point of departure. The central debates and arguments of this article are centred on the notion that indigenous languages are the core functionalities and important tools for human existence. It is against this backdrop that this article problematises the notion of undervaluing these languages while accelerating the status of colonial languages. In a nutshell, this article problematises language matters in South Africa that have and are still romanticised by the government or those who are in power. Contemporary South Africa is confronted by many problems, including the vicious novel coronavirus, and as such, my advocacy is driven by the fact that while there may be many reasonable solutions to these problems, indigenous languages should not be excluded as solutions. While the discussions of this article are in progress, a brief historical background on the marginalisation of local languages is subsumed with underlying perspectives from indigenous knowledge systems. I conclude my discussions by providing a way forward with the hope that other researchers, in particular linguists, will continue the discourse.

South Africa's new and revised National Curriculum Statement implicitly suggests the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK) into the science curriculum so that learners can, inter alia, learn within the context of their cultural knowledge. Unfortunately, teachers do not necessarily know about the various indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) within South Africa. We therefore decided to identify the ideas of traditional health practitioners (THPs) concerning what children need to know, and then to obtain science teachers' responses to these ideas. In this pilot study in the Western Cape, we used a qualitative approach and conducted in-depth interviews with a small group of THPs, with a follow-up questionnaire and discussion with a larger group. We then shared the THPs' ideas with both experienced science educators and high school science teachers. Our results show that THPs think that South African learners need to know about and respect their heritages, especially African IKS. They emphasized the importance of learning about health and freedom from disease, particularly HIV/AIDS. The THPs believe that both science and IK are important in the education of learners, and that they could co-teach their IK in conjunction with science topics. They suggested how they could do this. They believe that science teachers need to learn about IK, and suggested that THPs could learn some science. Both groups of science teachers were interested in, and strongly supportive of the THP suggestions. They also emphasized that IK needs to be standardized and validated by an indigenous organization.

This special issue addressing the theme of “Indigenous and Trans-Systemic Knowledge Systems” seeks to expand the existing methods, approaches, and conceptual understandings of Indigenous Knowledges to create new awareness, new explorations, and new inspirations across other knowledge systems. Typically, these have arisen and have been published through the western disciplinary traditions in interaction and engagement with diverse Indigenous Knowledge systems. Written by Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, and in collaborations, the contributions to this issue feature the research, study, or active exploration of applied methods or approaches from and with Indigenous Knowledge systems as scholarly inquiry, as well as practical communally-activated knowledge. These engagements between Eurocentric and Indigenous Knowledges have generated unique advancements dealing with dynamic systems that are constantly being animated and reformulated in various fields of life and experiences. While these varied applications abound, the essays in this issue explore the theme largely through scholarly research or applied pedagogies within conventional schools and universities. The engagement of these distinct knowledge systems has also generated reflective, immersive, and transactional explorations of how to foster well-being and recovery from colonialism in Indigenous community contexts.

Indigenous cultural and language negotiations ongoing in the contexts of South Africa and Canada are documented in two studies, one sharing narratives from Black parents in South Africa and the other sharing narratives of Métis Elders in Canada. Black parents’ perspectives on Indigenous language and cultures and the role of education in postapartheid South Africa are explored. Métis Elders’ perspectives examine the negotiation of identities through Indigenous languages in Métis contexts, importance of sharing stories in Indigenous languages, and understanding Michif and language negotiations in colonial and neocolonial times. We compare across these Indigenous contexts their complex and evolving language histories, racial categorization and repression of identities, demographics and impacts on languages, roles of languages in relationships to self and culture, and roles of English dominance in relation to Indigenous languages. Conclusions suggest the importance of nurturing and respecting Indigenous languages in both nations.

Aunty Mary Graham, Kombu-merri elder and philosopher, says: "You are not alone in the world." We have a responsibility to each other, as well as to the land; and violence is the refusal of this relationship that binds us (Rose). In this paper, I use Emannuel Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy and epistemological violence to consider how non-Indigenous educators come to know Indigenous people. In his philosophy, Levinas presents a paradox: that to act as if one is a free being, as first philosophy, is to ignore that one is not alone in the world and that the presence of others evokes responsibility. However, to claim to know another is to bring them into one’s totality, one’s knowledge framework; an act of reducing another to who you think they are. We must find a new relationship to knowledge, one that is not based on possession. For non-Indigenous educators learning about teaching Indigenous students and perspectives in schools, much of the curricular material draws on the corpus of knowledge constructed by non-Indigenous researchers, politicians, and professionals about Indigenous people (Nakata, Cultural Interface). This material is already bound by others' interests and motivations. How can non-Indigenous educators engage with Indigenous peoples, histories and knowledges in a way that foregrounds the responsibility that our entanglement prompts? In this paper, I present data from my research into pre-service teachers undertaking a compulsory university subject in Indigenous education, where the pre-service teachers wrote weekly reflective learning journals. This data is drawn primarily from the end of the semester, where students reflected on what their learning would mean as they moved into future practice. I explore the role of responsibility in regards to the ethical violence that Levinas discusses.

I am grateful for the financial contributions provided by the Canadian Indigenous of Health Research (CIHR), Institute of Indigenous Peoples Health and Gender and Health, with First Nations Health Authority, the Canadian Nurses Foundation, and the University of Victoria.