Dynamics of Decoloniality in South Africa: A Critique of the History of Swiss Mission Education for Indigenous People

Abstract

This paper presents a new framework to analyse missionary education in South Africa, using Grosfoguel’s conceptual and methodological lens of coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, and coloniality of being. Firstly, the paper introduces the theoretical lens that undergirds this study and describes the three above-mentioned dimensions. Rather than seek generalisations concerning missionary education in the historical record, the paper presents an analysis of the endeavours of the Swiss Mission Society as an example of Protestant evangelism in South Africa. I indicate how the Swiss Mission used education to racialise and hierarchise the indigenous people and how, in this process, knowledge and indigenous people were dehumanised. The argument is based on examples drawn from the Swiss Mission’s teacher training institution, namely the Lemana Teachers’ Training College, near Elim. Based on the paper’s critical analysis, I propose how power structures, colonised knowledge systems and beings could be decolonised.

Analysis of Participatory Action Research as a Decolonial Research Methodology

“…It calls into question the dominant ideologies like racism, sexism, colonialism, and imperialism that continue to oppress those affected by them (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2015b; Dei and Dei 2017). Decoloniality imagines a life free from these oppressive structures and aims to foster an equitable world for all by redistributing economic resources and creating space for different ways of knowing (Seroto 2018). Furthermore, it seeks to undo colonial legacies by reimagining culture, community, and identity in ways that cross or bridge geographic boundaries (Fernández et al 2021).…”

Laying the west to rest: A critical self-reflection from a South African academic on centring African knowledge production

“…In respect of coloniality of knowledge, authors contend that an interrogation of critical epistemological questions such as who generates the knowledge that is consumed and for what reasons, is essential (Mamdani, 2017;Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013;Perumal, 2017). Questions along these lines demand additional layers of academic scrutiny into the politics of knowledge creation, the relevance of the knowledge produced, as well as how such knowledge enhances or diminishes the value of communities (Seroto, 2018). It is also significant to note that social work is associated with rendering services to historically disadvantaged and marginalised communities.…”

Researching higher education in Africa as a process of meaning-making: Epistemological and theoretical considerations

“…First, beyond the current critique of Western hegemony, what are urgently needed are not necessarily alternatives but, instead, alternative thinking about the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological foundations of knowledge in African higher education. Second, such thinking should be grounded not only in full acknowledgement of the centrality of epistemic freedom and justice, but also in the recognition of "coloniality as a fundamental problem in the modern age" (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2014, p. 185; see also Maldonado-Torres, 2007;Mignolo, 2007bMignolo, , 2011Mignolo & Escobar, 2010;Mignolo and Vasquez, 2013;Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013Quijano, 2000;Seroto, 2018). Third, as suggested by the Western scholar, Bourdieu (1988), in the domain of social research, such thinking also requires degrees of vigilance that entail fundamental epistemological breaks.…”