Elders' Cultural Knowledges and the Question of Black/ African Indigeneity in Education

ISBN-13: 9783030842000 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022 / 240 str.

George J. Sefa Dei; Wambui Karanja; Grace Erger

Spis treści

Chapter 1:  ARTICULATING   THE EPISTEMIC CHALLENGE

 

In this chapter, we articulate the epistemic challenge and how one responds to the challenge. We  take up the assertion that, “We are all entitled to a “degree of self-centrism”.  However, the question is not whether non-dominant thinking [bodies of knowledge] “can reach a self-consciousness and evident neutrality”, but rather, engaging such knowledge as intellectual resistance & subversion for the main purpose of “offering alternative [complementary or contradictory] visions of reality more rooted in the lived experiences” of African peoples (Dabeshi, 2014; pp. 3-4).

 

Chapter 2: INDIGENEITY AND THE CHALLENGE OF DECOLONIAL EDUCATION

 

Chapter 2 will examine counter-hegemonic knowledge production in the [Western] academy and the responsibilities of Black/Indigenous/racialized scholars coming to know and producing knowing to challenge the particularly of Western science knowledge that masquerades as universal knowledge in academia.  We engage the chapter from a stance examining the coloniality of knowledge in academia, finding ways to centre Indigenous and African Elders’ cultural knowledge systems in the academy as a way to disrupt Euro-colonial hegemonic knowledging. We ask: how do we challenge the ‘grammar of coloniality’ of Western knowledge and affirm the possibilities of a re-imagining of “new geographies” & cartographies of knowledge (Raghuram, 2017) as varied and intersecting ontologies & epistemologies that inform our human condition as “learning experiences, research and knowledge generation” practices (see Lebakeng 2010; p. 28, citing Teffo, 2002)?  We take up the Mignolo and others conceptualization of ‘decoloniality’ drawing convergences and divergences with anti-colonial education highlighting how the claim of Indigeneity complicate such discussions in multiple geo-spaces.

 

 

Chapter 3:    WHERE WE ARE COMING FROM?

 

In this chapter, we develop a case for where we are coming from and interrogate, noting and highlighting some issues and questions:

 

a)      Knowledge exclusions/coloniality of ‘science [e.g., what constitutes knowledge? the ‘science’/Indigenous binary? etc.].

b)      Is there a place for ‘bodily ways of knowing’ in the academy [in the search for episteme in dialogue]?

c)      Primitivizing the ‘Other’ [e.g., the genealogies of Black/African intellectual thought].

d)     The resistance to claims of Black/African Indigeneity.

e)      Redefining Indigenous/Indigeneity & the relationship to the question of the Land [i.e., decolonization is also about resisting ‘imperial consciousness’].

f)       Taking up Elders’ cultural knowledges as pedagogies of social liberation?

g)      African Elders’ knowledge as ‘sub-intern’of place/site/location & source of Indigenous cosmologies & episteme, consisting of “worldsenses” [Oyewumi, 1977] & “new geographies of knowledge” [Raghuram, 2017].

h)      The ‘rhetoric’ and ‘myth’ of modernity - schooling & education deny the power of Elders’ cultural knowledges as decolonial difference.

 

Chapter 4:  ASKING QUESTIONS

 

In this chapter, we identify some key probing questions that guide the objectives of this book:

 

a)      How do we come to understand African Elders’ cultural knowledge as Indigenous epistemology?

b)      What specific Elders’ teachings relating to community, social responsibility, environment, Land, social justice, equity, youth leadership, respect, and mutual interdependence can be identified pointing to the implications for youth schooling and education (including educational policy)?

c)       What are the pedagogic, instructional and communicative challenges of Elders’ cultural knowledge; for classroom teaching?

d)      In what ways do African Elders’ cultural knowledge & Indigenous approaches enhance Black/African youth educational success?

           

Chapter 5: RECONCEPTUALIZATIONS

 

In Chapter 5, examine the major concepts of:

 

a)  Elders

b)  Elders’ Cultural Knowledges

 

and flesh out any challenges in their re-conceptualizations

 

Chapter 6: BLACK/AFRICAN INDIGENEITY

 

In Chapter 6, we respond to the following:

 

a)  The Question of Indigeneity

b)  Elders’ Cultural Knowledges as speaking to African Indigeneity

c)  Diasporic and transnational contexts

 

Chapter 7.   THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF AFRICAN ELDERS

 

In chapter 7, we offer examples of Epistemologies of African Elders that highlight their understandings of:

 

a)      African worldview, centeredness

a)      Epistemic colonialisms: hegemonies, binaries, hierarchies

b)      Elders cultural knowledges - Ontological and epistemological foundations, worldview foundations

c)      Multicentricity: Knowledge Production and ways of Knowing

d)      Teachings of the land

e)      Placed-based epistemologies

f)       Conceptions of land – site of knowledge

g)      Embodied epistemologies 

h)      Intuition and Holisticness

i)        Transmission and orality

j)        Situatedness

k)      Spirituality

l)        Decolonial, anti-colonial and subversive

 

 

Chapter 8   AFRICAN ELDERS’ INDIGENOUS STORY TELLING AS DECOLONIAL PEDAGOGIES

 

In this chapter we apply a decolonial framework to center Elders’ story-telling as decolonial pedagogy:

 

a)      Decolonial Pedagogies- Nature and Context

b)      Story Telling as Pedagogy

c)      Language and Orality

d)      Memory, Intuition,

e)      Circularity

f)       Intuition and Holisticness

g)      Situatedness

h)      Spirituality

i)        Intergenerational

 

Chapter 9   ISSUES/CHALLENGES IN THE STUDY OF ELDERS’ CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

 

In this chapter, we engage some issues and challenges in the study of Elders’ cultural knowledge:

 

a)      Language

b)      Orality

c)      Appropriation

d)      Systemic and institutional racism

e)      Nature and context of Indigenous knowledges – place based, localized, worldviews

f)       Issues of knowledge, power, identity, subjectivity, history and politics in knowledge production

g)      Culture and Knowledge appropriation

h)      Subjectivity and Institutional resistance

i)        Complicities and Implications

j)        Locality and multiplicity of Indigenous knowledges – whose knowledge? Hegemony?

k)      Education, globalization and internationalization

l)        Gender, sexuality, disability issues

m)    Contexts: political, social, economic

 

Chapter 10: Practical Implications for School Curriculum

 

The chapter focuses on practical strategies for centring Elder’s cultural knowledges in school curriculum.  Working from the understanding conveyed in preceding chapters that affirm that Black/African inclusion in conversations on Indigeneity and education in Canada, and also, bearing in mind the variant cultural diversities between Turtle Island Indigenous/Aboriginal/First Nations students and Black Diasporic students, we suggest practical ways Canadian and North American educational programming can be rooted in Indigenous pedagogies such as Land-based education. The goal is show how concrete strategies can be put in place in schools to apply to such knowledge to Black/African, Indigenous, colonized and racialized students to enhance educational outcomes for all.  We will provide some exemplars/case studies of how this is being done in some educational settings and sites.

 

Chapter 11.  CONCLUSION:  POSSIBILITIES OF NEW EDUCATIONAL FUTURITY

 

In conclusion we offer possibilities for new educational futurities rooted in Indigenous Elders’ cultural knowledges:

 

a)      Invoking Indigenousness consciousness, re-awakening, resurgent

b)      Subversion of colonial hierarchies

c)       Reclaiming discursive and definitional power and authority

d)      Indigenousness as point of reference, starting point

e)      Acknowledging all forms of resistance, resisting from where you are

f)       Engaging politics of refusal

g)      Reclaiming language and orality

h)      Communities of resistance

i)        Risk taking, resilience, subjective and collective forms of resistance

Blurb

This book makes a strong case for the inclusion of Indigenous Elders’ cultural knowledge in the delivery of inclusive education for learners who are members of minority communities. It is relevant to curriculum developers, teachers, policy makers and institutions that engage in the education of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other minority students. This book provides opportunities for exploring the decolonization of educational approaches. It promotes the synthesis of multiple types of knowledge and ways of knowing by making a case for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous Elders as teachers in learning spaces. The book is of interest to educators, students, and researchers of Indigenous knowledge and decolonizing education. Additionally, it is important for educational policy makers, especially those engaged in looking for strategic solutions to bridging educational disparities and gaps for Indigenous, Black, Latinx and other minority learners.