Epistemic Provincialism and Decolonization: Deprovincializing Indigenous Education

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Abstract

In this article, de-provincialisation is defined as an enlargement of frames of reference that emphasizes broader connections and conceptualizations – not to substitute, but to counterbalance established practices in indigenous and anti-oppressive education. Our argument in this article is that the universalization of Western/European thought through the mobilization of the phenomenon of modernity has created a context of epistemic provincialism that captures our attempts to decolonize or to resist cognitive imperialism. Drawing on indigenous existential orientations from the different ancestral genealogies of the authors of this paper, we contemplate potential contradictions between meta-physical principles of relationality and political strategies of resistance in decolonizing educational models.

Authors

• Cash Ahenakew, The University of British Columbia

• Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, The University of British Columbia

• Garrick Cooper, University of Canterbury