Jonathan D. Jansen - Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge

Decolonisation in Universities

Decolonisation in Universities

The Politics of Knowledge

EDITED BY Jonathan D. Jansen

Published in South Africa by:

Wits University Press

1 Jan Smuts Avenue

Johannesburg 2001

www.witspress.co.za

Compilation Editor 2019

Chapters Individual contributors 2019

Published edition Wits University Press 2019

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First published 2019

http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/22019083351

978-1-77614-335-1 (Paperback)

978-1-77614-336-8 (Web PDF)

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978-1-77614-338-2 (Mobi)

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Contents

Jonathan D. Jansen, Stellenbosch University

Mahmood Mamdani, Makerere University and Columbia University

Lesley Le Grange, Stellenbosch University

Jonathan D. Jansen, Stellenbosch University

Lis Lange, University of Cape Town

Ursula Hoadley and Jaamia Galant, University of Cape Town

Jess Auerbach, Open University of Mauritius, Mlungisi Dlamini and Anonymous

Crain Soudien, Human Sciences Research Council

Yusuf Sayed and Tarryn de Kock, University of Sussex, Shireen Motala, University of Johannesburg

Brenda Schmahmann, University of Johannesburg

Andr Keet, Nelson Mandela University

Piet Naud, Stellenbosch University

Achille Mbembe, University of the Witwatersrand

Grant Parker, Stanford University and Stellenbosch University

List of Figures

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 9

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

Making Sense of Decolonisation in Universities

Jonathan D. Jansen
Stellenbosch University

The student protests starting in 2015 added a new term to the lexicon of South African universities decolonisation. It is of course a word with a long history dating back to the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s and extending to the postcolonial period to signal ongoing efforts to undo the legacies of colonialism. But decolonisation had never been a prominent or sustained component of the struggle discourse under or after apartheid. The discursive terminologies of the struggle included terms like anti-apartheid education, liberation pedagogy, reconstruction and development education, and of course that ubiquitous referent, transformation. Literally overnight, the word decolonisation rolled off the lips of activists, bannered everyday protests and initiated across mainly the formerly white campuses seminars, conferences and committees to determine meanings and methods for changing universities their complexions, cultures and curricula.

This book brings together the best curriculum minds in South Africa to make sense of decolonisation as a signal moment in the century-old history of higher education in South Africa. What does the word even mean? Why does it emerge at this moment, more than 20 years into democracy? Where does the press for decolonisation come from intellectually, socially, culturally and politically? How does it relate to associated concepts such as Africanisation or indigenous education or postcolonial education? Is decolonisation the appropriate response, substantively and strategically, to the complex of problems gripping the education system in South Africa? Does the term decolonisation carry much validity in a country last formally colonised more than 100 years ago? Or is decolonisation simply a byword for proxy discontents in education and society? And what does decolonisation imply for the nature, purposes and politics of curriculum?

THE CONCEPTUAL ORIENTATION OF THE BOOK

In the literature, decolonisation is a concept that has been applied broadly to various things, from changes to the artworks of a university to the social transformation of entire nations. The specific focus of this book, however, is primarily on decolonisation as applied to the university curriculum; that is, as a knowledge project.

The question of knowledge as framed in this book is a political subject and therefore the decolonisation thesis is interrogated from the viewpoint of The Politics of Knowledge, as reflected in the subtitle of this volume. There is in fact a long and continuing tradition of scholarship on the politics of knowledge in political studies more broadly (Neave 2006; Dominguez Rubio and Baert 2012) and in curriculum studies more specifically (Apple 1979; Lim and Apple 2016).

The starting point of this tradition is that knowledge is never neutral. Who produces knowledge, what knowledge is produced and what knowledge is left out are central questions of inquiry within the politics of knowledge. This is what Michael Apple (1993) calls the selective tradition or what Elliot Eisner (1985) once referenced as the null curriculum that what is left out in the choice of knowledge is consequential for both social and disciplinary learning. Those knowledge choices, critical theorists would argue, are political decisions vested in authorities like the government in power, commercial textbook publishers and international funding agencies (Littoz-Monnet 2017).