Indigenous Discourses On Knowledge And Development In Africa

African social development is often explained from outsider perspectives that are mainly European and Euro-American, leaving African indigenous discourses and ways of knowing and doing absent from discussions and debates on knowledge and development. This book is intended to present Africanist indigenous voices in current debates on economic, educational, political and social development in Africa. The authors and contributors to the volume present bold and timely ideas and scholarship for defining Africa through its challenges, possible policy formations, planning and implementation at the local, regional, and national levels. The book also reveals insightful examinations of the hype, the myths and the realities of many topics of concern with respect to dominant development discourses, and challenges the misconceptions and misrepresentations of indigenous perspectives on knowledge productions and overall social well-being or lack thereof. The volume brings together researchers who are concerned with comparative education, international development, and African development, research and practice in particular. Policy makers, institutional planners, education specialists, governmental and non-governmental managers and the wider public should all benefit from the contents and analyses of this book.

This edited volume analyzes African knowledge production and alternative development paths of the region. The contributors demonstrate ways in which African-centered knowledge refutes stereotypes depicted by Euro-centric scholars and, overall, examine indigenous African contributions in global knowledge production and development. The project provides historical and contemporary evidences that challenge the dominance of Euro-centric knowledge, particularly, about Africa, across various disciplines. Each chapter engages with existing scholarship and extends it by emphasizing on Indigenous knowledge systems in addition to future indicators of African knowledge production.

African social development is often explained from outsider perspectives that are mainly European and Euro-American, leaving African indigenous discourses and ways of knowing and doing absent from discussions and debates on knowledge and development. This book is intended to present Africanist indigenous voices in current debates on economic, educational, political and social development in Africa. The authors and contributors to the volume present bold and timely ideas and scholarship for defining Africa through its challenges, possible policy formations, planning and implementation at the local, regional, and national levels. The book also reveals insightful examinations of the hype, the myths and the realities of many topics of concern with respect to dominant development discourses, and challenges the misconceptions and misrepresentations of indigenous perspectives on knowledge productions and overall social well-being or lack thereof. The volume brings together researchers who are concerned with comparative education, international development, and African development, research and practice in particular. Policy makers, institutional planners, education specialists, governmental and non-governmental managers and the wider public should all benefit from the contents and analyses of this book.

Since time immemorial, indigenous peoples around the world have developed knowledge systems to ensure their continued survival in their respective territories. These knowledge systems have always been dynamic such that they could meet new challenges. Yet, since the so-called enlightenment period, these knowledges have been supplanted by the Western enlightenment science or colonial science hegemony and arrogance such that in many cases they were relegated to the periphery. Some Euro-centric scholars even viewed indigenous knowledge as superstitious, irrational and anti-development. This erroneous view has, since the colonial period, spread like veld fire to the extent of being internalised by some political elites and Euro-centric academics of Africa and elsewhere. However, for some time now, the potential role that indigenous peoples and their knowledge can play in addressing some of the global problems haunting humanity across the world is increasingly emerging as part of international discourse. This book presents an interesting and insightful discourse on the state and role that indigenous knowledge can play in addressing a tapestry of problems of the world and the challenges connected with the application of indigenous knowledge in enlightenment science-dominated contexts. The book is not only useful to academics and students in the fields of indigenous studies and anthropology, but also those in other fields such as environmental science, social and political ecology, development studies, policy studies, economic history, and African studies.

This text explores the multidisciplinary context of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems from scholars and scholar activists committed to the interrogation, production, articulation, dissemination and general development of endogenous and indigenous modes of intellectual activity and praxis. The work reinforces the demand for the decolonization of the academy and makes the case for a paradigmatic shift in content, subject matter and curriculum in institutions in Africa and elsewhere – with a view to challenging and rejecting disinformation and intellectual servitude. Indigenous intellectual discourses related to diverse disciplines take center stage in this volume with a focus on education, mathematics, medicine, chemistry and engineering in their historical and contemporary context.

This book is an intellectual journey into epistemology, pedagogy, physics, architecture, medicine and metallurgy. The focus is on various dimensions of African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) with an emphasis on the sciences, an area that has been neglected in AIK discourse. The authors provide diverse views and perspectives on African indigenous scientific and technological knowledge that can benefit a wide spectrum of academics, scholars, students, development agents, and policy makers, in both governmental and non-governmental organizations, and enable critical and alternative analyses and possibilities for understanding science and technology in an African historical and contemporary context.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book explores the role of the social and natural sciences in supporting the development of indigenous knowledge systems. It looks at how indigenous knowledge systems can impact on the transformation of knowledge generating institutions such as scientific and higher education institutions on the one hand, and the policy domain on the other.