Knowledge Creation Through Epistemic Synergy: A Foundation for Equitable Education

• In Event: Decolonizing Education: Critical Perspectives and Liberating Practices

Abstract

Why is there a scarcity of nonwestern knowledge systems for data analysis at academic conferences including those dubbed as international? Based on the premise that the foundation of education is knowledge, and the foundation of equitable education is epistemic justice, this presentation demonstrates benefits of diversifying metalanguage and analytical apparatuses for data analysis through challenging western centric research traditions that construct the global south as incapable of producing analytical tools. Might researchers and stakeholders be complicit in sustaining epistemic marginalization? The presentation illustrates insights on language and literacy through an interepistemic synergy approach, employing indexicality and interactional sociolinguistics on one hand and Afrocentric methodology on the other, in analyzing data produced in a grades 9/5 literacy collaboration in Nairobi, Kenya.

Author

• David Bwire, The College of New Jersey