(Dis)continuity of African Indigenous knowledge

Abstract

What role does Indigenous knowledge play in the lives of contemporary Africans? To investigate this question, we visited three communities in Ghana—rural, peri-urban, and urban—where we interviewed community members involved in communal education. Contrary to the literature on the decline of Indigenous knowledge, we find that Indigenous knowledge, practices, and institutions are resilient across all contexts. Traditional leaders continue to play a significant role as stewards of Indigenous knowledge despite the impact of colonization, rural–urban migration, and globalization. However, Indigenous knowledge does not exist in a vacuum. It coexists and competes with many knowledge systems, inculcating in Africans multiple identities and consciousness. We discuss the implication of our findings and explain why there is a need for Africans to better integrate their multiple consciousnesses and different lived realities.

A hybrid curriculum: privileging Indigenous knowledges over western knowledges in the school curriculum in Kenya

“…There is value in receiving both western and Indigenous education. Indigenous education will ground the learner to their root, their culture, their people and their way of knowing (Kenyatta, 1965;Maathai, 2006;Thiong'o, 1986), while western education opens the world to the learner (Heto & Mino, 2023). Indigenous knowledge and western knowledge can coexist but there needs to be intention in prioritising Gīkūyū ways of knowing in the curriculum (Thiong'o, 1986).…”