Much-Needed Repair: A Pursuit of Epistemic Justice Through Decolonizing Methodologies

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 5:10 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Inclusive Education With Global Perspectives (Table 1)

Abstract

It is not an accident that at academic conferences, including those dubbed as international, there is a scarcity of non-Western knowledge systems for analysis. Leading academic journals seldom feature articles or publications that rely on non-Western epistemic systems to analyze data. Epistemic injustice has positioned the global south as producing data whereas Western(ized) thinkers produce analytical tools. How might we seize the opportunity to remedy and repair this epistemic marginalization? Through an interepistemic synergy approach, indexicality, interactional sociolinguistics, and Afrocentric methodology, I analyze data produced in a grades 9/5 literacy collaboration in Nairobi, Kenya to make a case for research in pursuit of epistemic justice for comprehensive insights on language and literacy.

Author

• David Bwire, The College of New Jersey