Education and Modes of Decolonization: Ubuntu Paradigm and the Recovery Process

• In Event: Doing “Epistemologies of the South”: Criticality, Reflexivity, and Praxis Across Cultures

Abstract

In essence, colonialization aim at controlling totally the colonized people, their land and other resources.  Of primary importance among the targeted areas of the control is the mind. Formal education constitutes a primary instrument of domination.  Colonial powers design and implement education policies that amount to different forms of “epistemicide” (Boaventura de Sousa Santos 2014, João M. Paraskeva 2016). Thus, decolonization ought to mean restoring the humanity of the formerly colonized by systematically “decolonizing the mind” (Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʾo, 1986). The thrust of this paper is to articulate the re-emergence of Ubuntu paradigm in Africa as part of the process of recovery and renewal.

Author

• N'Dri Assie-Lumumba, Cornell University