Introduction: African Knowledges, Decolonization and Alternative Futures

Abstract

Although all societies have emerged through various complex processes of knowledge acquisition, dissemination and utilization, the unequal power equilibrium in the global system has produced a situation in which the powerful dominates the less powerful. Scholars have argued that knowledge production in the post-Enlightenment era reflects the interests, values and epistemologies of the dominant powers, undoubtedly represented by the Euro-America hegemonic world. This epistemic hegemony was achieved at the expense of the epistemic flourishing of non-Western knowledge systems. This chapter contributes to the debate on the politics of knowledge production. It locates African knowledge systems within the global hierarchical structure of knowledge production and argues that contrary to the deliberate silencing that has characterized knowledges from Africa, the continent boasts of indigenous approaches to managing socio-economic and political aspects of lives. The chapter also synthesizes the remaining chapters in the book.