Decolonising Scholarship

Course Objective

The course is part of developing a decolonial feminist pedagogical and methodological praxis.
1. Students/scholars will be able to rethink pedagogical and methodological approaches from the standpoint of African radical communitarianism such as Ubuntu, Uhuru and Ujamaa.
2. Students/scholars will be called upon to engage with the methodological approach of learning through sharing with conversation as method. In other words, students/scholars will have to engage in conversation as part of knowledge production using lived experiences to think through research problems.
3. Students/scholars will also be able to develop tools such as:
a. Research design (how the research question can inform the research design);
b. Community-driven research for real-life solutions;
c. Theoretical frameworks based on decolonial feminist theory and,
d. Developing and designing research methodologies for community-driven research such as photo-voice, Agential Reflexive Methodology (ARM), participatory research, etc.
4. Students/scholars will also be able to engage with research from an ntsomi (storytelling) communitarian perspective of sharing moral and ethical imperatives of recognition, reflection and repair.
5. Students /scholars will engage in a non-hierarchical praxis using the ntsomi tradition of storytelling by way of co-producing knowledge through conversation as method.
6. Students/scholars will also be required to engage with the pedagogical and methodological approaches in the classroom through disrupting rigid notions of authoritative scholarship in which scholars and texts remain authorities on knowledge; and to re-value and re-centre scholar/activist/artist whilst continuing to challenge fixed binaries that reify normative practices in scholarship.
7. Students/scholars will be able to model the methodology and ‘outputs’ alternative, critical, social and environmental justice that furthers the aims of decolonial feminism.

Course Content

The course will address alternative, critical and justice pedagogies together with research methodologies, speaking to the scholarly project of decolonial feminism. The pedagogical and methodological approaches are based on Freirian perspectives of criticality, conscientisation and learning through sharing with participating scholars developing the weekly agenda/sessions through consultations based on group requirements. Moreover, these approaches are transformative when conversation as method is applied to the classroom as well as research objectives of disrupting the scholar as the locus of knowledge. Instead, the scholar becomes a participant in the research through the decolonial feminist imperative of recognition, reflection and repair. However, a course outline is offered to the group with a comprehensive reading list which is an ongoing archival process open to further readings, including social media sites such as blogs, vlogs, etc. Furthermore, the course sessions will rely on blurring the lines between art/activism/scholarship in order to address the importance of intersecting ontology with epistemology as well as providing the tools for exploring a healing praxis. The success of the course is heavily reliant on scholarly participation for making this an inclusive process while disrupting colonial praxis. It also gives the scholar the opportunity to practice African radical communitarianism in the three weeks of the course.

Teaching Methods

A decolonial feminist pedagogical and methodological praxis that focuses on healing through conversation as method (logotherapy) will be used in the classroom as part of bridging the classroom to the community through community-driven research methods such as learning through sharing with group supervision. Subsequently, hierarchy is dropped in the classroom to engage in African radical communitarianism of Ubuntu, Uhuru and Ujamaa. This pedagogical and methodological praxis relies on a combination of seminars and engagements/presentations: artistic and activistic that speak to decolonial feminism.

Method of Assessment

The final assignment will count for 30%. Class participation and attendance will count for 40% (the rationale is to encourage participation and conversation as method) and, journals will count for a further 30%.

Literature

Key readings that speak to decolonial feminist
scholarship with a critique on literature, theory,
methodology and social and environmental
justice; literature on feminist and intersectional
decolonisation; scholarly work on performative
activism; literature on engaged scholarship
(Ubuntu), new materialism, critical and feminist
pedagogical praxis and participatory and post-
qualitative research methodologies.

Target Audience

This course is targeted towards mainly doctoral
candidates and researchers that recognize the
value of using decolonial feminism in the employ
of their research question.
Furthermore, a decolonial feminist lens lends itself
to rethinking justice from several perspectives
such as Ubuntu, Uhuru and Ujamaa. This also
accompanies a philosophical positioning of
environmental justice with a rights-based
approach to the Earth as a living being. This shifts
the authority of the scholar towards new ways of
being and knowing. Such communitarian and
pluriversal connections rely on indigenous
knowledge systems in opening scholarship to new
imaginaries that lead to conscientisation and
social awareness. Thus, the course is also open to
all members of faculty.