Documenting Student Representation of Indigenous HIV/AIDS Information and Integration Into the School Curriculum

Abstract

Often times, contemporary health and epidemiological practices ignore indigenous information on HIV prevention. Colonial hegemony tends to replicate indigenous knowledge bases as primordial, superstitious, and lacking vivid scientific explanation to qualify the test for medical diagnostic study. Using an information science viewpoint and an anti-colonial discursive theory, this paper challenges the skewed discernment that it is only Western knowledge production that is considered legitimate knowledge. The authors argue that indigenous HIV/AIDS information exists and can be integrated into the curriculum to complement Western knowledge paradigms on adolescent HIV prevention.

Lifelong Educational and Decolonization Programs for the Batwa Indigenous People of Southwestern Uganda

“…The remedial measure for effective cultural reclamation would be to agitate for the scientific documentation and classification of relevant Batwa cultures, knowledge, and traditions to make them suitable for academic purposes in the global knowledge revolution (cf. Sekiwu et al, 2021;Sekiwu, Akena and Rugambwa, 2022;Rugambwa et al, 2023). This also would take into account the fact that indigenous knowledge is evolving rather than static; it evolves as people collectively find ways of discussing experiences and ideas in the light of challenges being confronted.…”