Description
Book SynopsisShortly after the giant bronze statue of Cecil John Rhodes came down at the University of Cape Town, student protestors called for the decolonisation of universities. It was a word hardly heard in South Africa’s struggle lexicon and many asked: What exactly is decolonisation? This book brings together some of the most innovative thinking on curriculum theory to address this important question. In the process, several critical questions are raised: Is decolonisation simply a slogan for addressing other pressing concerns on campuses and in society? What is the colonial legacy with respect to curricula and can it be undone? How is the project of curricula decolonisation similar to or different from the quest for post-colonial knowledge, indigenous knowledge or a critical theory of knowledge? What does decolonisation mean in a digital age where relationships between knowledge and power are shifting? Strong conceptual analyses are combined with case studies of attempts to ‘do decolonisation’ in settings as diverse as South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Mauritius. This comparative perspective enables reasonable judgments to be made about the prospects for institutional take-up within the curriculum of century-old universities.
Decolonisation in Universities is essential reading for undergraduate teaching, postgraduate research and advanced scholarship in the field of curriculum studies.
Trade ReviewThis outstanding collection by some of South Africa’s foremost thinkers will add clarity to the challenges facing our universities … In sharp and interesting ways the contributors remind us of the complexity of the historical moment as we try to fathom the role of universities as social institutions in a severely unequal, deeply divided society. — Ahmed Bawa, Professor and Chief Executive Officer of Universities South Africa This is a long-awaited, incisive and insightful book on decolonising knowledge in university curricula, drawing on key thinkers in the area. It will have immense impact on theory and practice beyond the borders of South Africa. — Shirley Anne Tate, Professor of Race and Education and Director of the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality, Carnegie School of Education
Table of Contents
- Introduction and Overview: The Politics of Curriculum – Jonathan D Jansen
- Part 1: The arguments for decolonisation
- Chapter 1 Decolonising universities – Mahmood Mamdani
- Chapter 2 The curriculum case for decolonization – Lesley Le Grange
- Part 2: The politics and problems of decolonisationisation
- Chapter 3 Knowledge, authority and the settled curriculum – Jonathan D Jansen
- Chapter 4 The institutional curriculum, pedagogy and the decolonisation of the South African university – Lis Lange
- Chapter 5 What counts and who belongs? Current debates in decolonising the curriculum – Ursula Hoadley and Jaamia Galant
- Part 3: Doing decolonizationChapter 6 Scaling decolonial consciousness? The reinvention of ‘Africa’ in a neoliberal university – Jess Auerbach, Mlungisi Dlamini and Janice Ndegwa
- Chapter 7 Testing transgressive thinking: The “Learning Through Enlargement” Initiative at UNISA – Crain Soudien
- Chapter 8 Between higher and basic education in South Africa: What does decolonisation mean for teacher education? – Yusuf Sayed and Shireen Motala
- Part 4: Reimaging colonial inheritances
- Chapter 9 Public Art and/as Curricula: Seeking a new role for monuments associated with oppression – Brenda Schmahmann
- Chapter 10 The Plastic University: knowledge, disciplines and the decolonial turn – André Keet
- Chapter 11 Decolonising knowledge: can ubuntu ethics save us from coloniality? – Piet Naude
- Part 5: Decolonisation and the future
- Chapter 12 Future knowledges and their implications for the decolonisation project – Achille Mbembe
- Afterword: Minds via Curricula? – Grant Parker
- References
- List of abbreviations
- Index
