Epistemicide is the exclusion or elimination of indigenous knowledge systems at the expense of the imperious, domineering, and colonial knowledge systems. To combat epistemicide in Africa and liberate the minds of the current generation, the authors propose a comprehensive ubuntu based model of education. This model suggests four interrelated strategies of liberation: 1) decolonization, 2) revalorization, 3) revitalization, and 4) construction and creation (DRRC) of knowledge. This chapter examines the contextual and conceptual background of education in Africa through a historical lens, provides a detailed description of the proposed model, and outlines some potential implementation challenges.
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Epistemicide [1], a term invented by Santos (2007), is the exclusion or elimination of indigenous knowledge systems (de Sousa Santos, 2007; Hall & Tandon, 2017) at the expense of the imperious, domineering, and colonial knowledge systems. As stated by Cheik Anta Dioup (1967) and Martin Bernal (1987) (cited in Santos, 2014, p. 139), epistemicide can be overt, direct and intentional such as the elimination of “the African roots of Greek antiquity so as to intensify its purity as the root of European culture.” However, oftentimes, epistemicide is so ingrained in other systems of exploitation that it does not surface as an ill necessitating elimination. “Epistemicide, as the systematic destruction of rival forms of knowledge, is at its worst nothing less than symbolic genocide” (Bennett, 2007, p. 154). On the other hand, the Oxford English Dictionary defines education as “the systematic instruction, teaching, or training in various academic and non-academic subjects given to or received by a child, typically at a school; the course of scholastic instruction a person receives in his or her lifetime”. One wonders how a system that is supposed to cognitively enrich and sustain knowledge ended up destroying it in Africa.
Steve Biko’s quote “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed” exhorts us, who have been affected by an oppressive education system, to heal and liberate our minds. Africans must decolonize the new generation’s minds and equip them with culturally relevant and sustaining epistemologies and approaches. Several prominent figures (Hall & Tandon, 2017; Mudimbe, 1988; Nyerere,1978; Thiong’O, 1984; Bird, 2018; Fanon, 1952; Freire, 1972; Nkrumah,1964) have highlighted the importance of liberating the mind to achieve true freedom. With this call to action in mind, we propose a comprehensive ubuntu based model of education to combat epistemicide in Africa, with four interrelated strategies of liberation: 1) decolonization, 2) revalorization, 3) revitalization, and 4) construction and creation (DRRC) of culturally relevant knowledge. Ubuntu is integral to this model because, as its characterizations in Table 1 show, it is a philosophy that’s centered around humanness.