Re Imagining Indigenous Knowledge And Practices In 21st Century Africa Debunking Myths And Misconceptions For Conviviality And Sustainability

This book is on the re-imagination of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and practices in 21st century Africa. Framed from an anti-colonial perspective, the book critically interrogates epistemological erasures and injustices meted against African IKS and practices. It magnifies the different contexts where African IKS were and continue to be used effectively for collective and personal benefit. Beyond the legitimate frustration and disheartenment expressed by the contributors to this volume over the systematic colonial efforts to render inferior and delegitimate African systems of knowing and knowledge production, the book makes an important contribution to the quest to correct misconceptions and misrepresentations by Eurocentric thinkers and practitioners about African indigenous knowledges. The book makes an informed claim that the future and vibrancy of African indigenous knowledge and practices lie in how well scholars of knowledge studies and decoloniality in and on Africa are able to join hands in articulating, debating and fronting their vitality and relevance in varied real-life situations. More importantly, the book provides a re-invigorated overview and nuanced analyses of the important role and continued relevance of African IKS and practices in the understanding, interpreting and tackling of the social unfoldings of everyday life and dynamism. Without romanticising African IKS and practices, the book provides added insights and pointers on policy and trends. It is an important addition to critical debates on knowledge studies across fields.

This book is on the re-imagination of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and practices in 21st century Africa. Framed from an anti-colonial perspective, the book critically interrogates epistemological erasures and injustices meted against African IKS and practices. It magnifies the different contexts where African IKS were and continue to be used effectively for collective and personal benefit. Beyond the legitimate frustration and disheartenment expressed by the contributors to this volume over the systematic colonial efforts to render inferior and delegitimate African systems of knowing and knowledge production, the book makes an important contribution to the quest to correct misconceptions and misrepresentations by Eurocentric thinkers and practitioners about African indigenous knowledges. The book makes an informed claim that the future and vibrancy of African indigenous knowledge and practices lie in how well scholars of knowledge studies and decoloniality in and on Africa are able to join hands in articulating, debating and fronting their vitality and relevance in varied real-life situations. More importantly, the book provides a re-invigorated overview and nuanced analyses of the important role and continued relevance of African IKS and practices in the understanding, interpreting and tackling of the social unfoldings of everyday life and dynamism. Without romanticising African IKS and practices, the book provides added insights and pointers on policy and trends. It is an important addition to critical debates on knowledge studies across fields.

This book is on the re-imagination of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and practices in 21st century Africa. Framed from an anti-colonial perspective, the book critically interrogates epistemological erasures and injustices meted against African IKS and practices. It magnifies the different contexts where African IKS were and continue to be used effectively for collective and personal benefit. Beyond the legitimate frustration and disheartenment expressed by the contributors to this volume over the systematic colonial efforts to render inferior and delegitimate African systems of knowing and knowledge production, the book makes an important contribution to the quest to correct misconceptions and misrepresentations by Eurocentric thinkers and practitioners about African indigenous knowledges. The book makes an informed claim that the future and vibrancy of African indigenous knowledge and practices lie in how well scholars of knowledge studies and decoloniality in and on Africa are able to join hands in articulating, debating and fronting their vitality and relevance in varied real-life situations. More importantly, the book provides a re-invigorated overview and nuanced analyses of the important role and continued relevance of African IKS and practices in the understanding, interpreting and tackling of the social unfoldings of everyday life and dynamism. Without romanticising African IKS and practices, the book provides added insights and pointers on policy and trends. It is an important addition to critical debates on knowledge studies across fields.

This book analyses the role of religion during the COVID- 19 pandemic and vaccination rollout in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of thirteen African countries to have fully vaccinated more than 10% of its population against COVID- 19 by the end of September 2021, but the country fell far short of the government’s own target for achieving 60% inoculation by December 2020. This book analyses whether religion played a role in explaining why the government’s pro- vaccine stance did not translate into high vaccination rates. Drawing upon various religions, including African indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam, the book considers how faith actors demonstrated vaccine acceptance, resistance or hesitancy. Zimbabwe offers a particularly interesting and varied case for analysis, and the original research on display here will be an important contribution to wider debates on religion and COVID- 19. This book will be useful to academics, researchers and students studying religious studies, sociology, health and well- being, religion and development.

This book delves into the topical issue of the future of humanity and of being African in a world increasingly subjected to the power of technology and the dominance of a mercilessly self-absolved global elite. A slave is not only someone who is materially impoverished but also someone who is deprived of autonomy and sovereignty in the sense of being physically or virtually chained or shackled to human and nonhuman networks that negate the essence of the "I" or the "self". Discoursing the neologism slave 4.0 with the ongoing 21st century revolutions designed to create flat ontologies, this book argues that the world is witnessing not only the emergence of industry 4.0 but also the concomitant emergence of slave 4.0. Whereas historically, Africans were physically captured and transported across the Atlantic Ocean, minds of twenty-first century Africans are set to be nanotechnologically scanned, captured and transferred to the metaverse where they will neither own natural resources nor biologically reproduce. The book is handy for scholars in sociology, anthropology, political science, government studies, development studies, digital humanities, environmental studies, religious studies, theology, missiology, science and technology studies.

This volume proposes a wholesale adoption of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS) as a paradigm for Africa's renewal and freedom from the whims of foreign interests. These systems, as argued here, involve balancing short-term thinking and immediate gratification with longer-term planning for future generations of Africans and the continent's diaspora. The book will be of interest to anyone concerned with development studies in Africa and its diaspora, as it offers plausible solutions to Africa's chronic developmental problems that can only be provided from within Africa, rather than through the intervention of external third parties. As such, it provides vital contributions to the ongoing search for viable answers to the challenges that Africa faces today.

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.