Educational Reparations: Undoing Epistemicide Through Ifá

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session One
  In Roundtable Session: Decolonial Entry Points to Theory, Method, and Resistance to Epistemicide (Table 2)

Abstract

This interdisciplinary paper introduces the literary, divinatory, and religious tradition of Yorùbá Ifá and Òrìṣà as a paradigm to guide reparations for countless spiritual and physical murders that have been committed in service of the colonial project of ‘school.’ The curriculum of Ifá Heritage Institute—a tuition-free, postsecondary institution in Oyo, Nigeria—is rooted entirely in Indigenous Yorùbá ancestral values, and instruction is delivered entirely in the Yorùbá language. African and African Diaspora cultural memories, belief systems, historical experiences, rituals, and secularities are the texts where the ancient wisdom of Black Africa is centered as reasonable, rational, worth knowing and teaching. Aligned with the principles of Indigenous Africana education, learning brings the ancient past to bear on the present and future.

Author

• Michelle Ajisebo McElwaine Abimbola, Boston College
  Presenting Author