Editorial
‘Decolonization after democracy’ is the provocative idea that the forms of knowledge that endure in higher education in South Africa, and other postcolonial countries, reproduce deeply rooted and pernicious colonial era assumptions and norms. This matters because these ontologies and their moral val...
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| Published in: | Politikon Vol. 45; no. 1; p. 1 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Pretoria
Taylor & Francis Ltd
01-04-2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | ‘Decolonization after democracy’ is the provocative idea that the forms of knowledge that endure in higher education in South Africa, and other postcolonial countries, reproduce deeply rooted and pernicious colonial era assumptions and norms. This matters because these ontologies and their moral valence enabled colonial era forms of knowledge that serviced the oppression and exploitative of conquered peoples, and consequently are poorly equipped to support the inclusion and well-being promised by democracy.Furthermore, these forms of knowledge endure in postcolonial contexts, not least due to their deep-rooted and ‘foundational’ nature in the basic categories of the social. Examples include both negative binaries such as ‘civilized and backward’, ‘modern and traditional’ and ‘rational and superstitious’, and also the positive conceptions of freedom, equality, justice, democracy, development, governance, nation and citizenship. Key here is the often-implicit assumption that the western experience is the norm and/or universal, from which other forms are imitations, deviations or pathologies. |
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| ISSN: | 0258-9346 1470-1014 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/02589346.2018.1418200 |