Highlighted Session: Afrika SIG Bantaba 2024: Enacting Sankofa to Regenerate Power through Collective Action

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Description of Session

The Bantaba has been Afrika SIG’s signature event since 2017. Our inaugural year was focused on Education in the African Union's Agenda 2063 and spent time unpacking, problematizing, and exploring possible directions. In 2018, we considered reconstructing North-South relationships based on post-colonial African perspectives. Then in 2019 we discussed ways to decolonize Education for Sustainability and questioned what exactly needed to be sustained. By 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we again focused on African perspectives, but asked what does education look like beyond the human. As the pandemic continued throughout 2021, we discussed the urgent need for all to be mindful of our social responsibility in contemporary Africa and interrogated the roles of civil society, the academy, and philanthropy. As the pandemic persisted in 2022, we began to revisit and take stock of where we stood regarding the old but persisting call made by many African scholars and thinkers of both the 20th century and current to break away from the deeply colonial and Eurocentric education systems left behind by colonial powers. Much thinking and educational reforms have been undertaken in Africa to bring about an education system that is in sync with African cultures and value systems and that meets the aspirations of the people in a world that is ever evolving in the production of new knowledge and technologies. Thus, we visualized the ideal of an Afrocentric education system. By 2023, we found Africa At The Crossroads and decided to Claim the 21st century through equitable education, transdisciplinary skills development and integrated strategies for transformation. Now in 2024, we are ready to enact Sankofa to Regenerate Power through Collective Action. For this we will seek to learn from past efforts as we celebrate effective efforts implemented over the past 7 years and collectively plan our next steps.

Approach and Structure:

1. Pre-CIES conference Engagement: The invited contributors will provide short pieces of 3-5 pages in response to the theme by the end of January 2024 (List of contributors will be shared later). An example of addressing the questions may be something like “What does the Africa of the future look like?” (Think Wakanda), what core skills do our students need at every level of the education system to make the continent competitive in a rapidly changing world? Their contributions will be focused on the theme of the Bantaba.

2. Synthesis: When all the contributions are received, a team of ASIG members will be charged with the task of amalgamating the ideas and synthesizing them to tease out relevant themes and sub-themes to fuel the discussion. The synthesis will be made available to the contributors in advance to prepare them for reflective engagement with participants.

3. As in the first seven years, the Bantaba will consist of an in-person meeting in Miami, Florida for an interactive session where participants will be able to ask questions and contribute to the discussion. The session will be divided in four parts: a) introductory remarks by the chair and presentation of the synthesis; b) roundtable discussion moderated by the chair ; c) breakout rooms with guiding questions; and d) a reporting back and plenary session where questions from the audience will be recorded and discussed after commentaries by invited discussants.

Chair and Moderator: Rhonesha Blaché, Ed.D., Research Fellow, EW Gordon Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

List of potential contributors:

Ambassador Fatima Kyari Mohammed
Dr. N’Dri Assié-Lumumba
Professor Ali A. Abdi
Dr. Warren Clarke
Professor Joel Samoff
Dr. Joan Osa Oviawe
Dr. Chizoba Imoka
Dr. José Cossa
Dr. Anne Mungai
Dr. Kilemi Mwiria: kilemimwiria@gmail.com
Prof. George Dei: tbc
Prof. Molefi Keti Asante
10. Someone from the African Union (someone responsible for CESA 2016-2025, a rep. of the Institute for Education for Development, the commissioner of https://au.int/en/esti, a rep. of a relevant https://au.int/en/stc, etc.)

Discussants: Tutaleni I. Asino (Oklahoma State University), Martial Dembélé (Université de Montréal)

Rapporteurs: Samba Bah(Ohio University), another to be announced

Sub Unit

• Africa SIG

Chair

• Rhonesha L Blache, BLACHE Education, LLC

Individual Presentations

• Bantaba 2024: The Year of Sankofa - Rhonesha L Blache, BLACHE Education, LLC; Martial Dembélé, University of Montreal

Discussants

• Tutaleni I Asino, Oklahoma State University

• Joan Oviawe

• N'Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba, Cornell University