Why Sankofa Epistemology? Radically Shifting the Axis of Knowledge

18 July 2023 -18 July 2023 @ 18:00 - 19:00

Details

Date:
July 18, 2023
Time:
06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Venue:
Eden Grove Blue Lecture
Event Type:
Public Lecture

Organizer

Prof. Siphokazi Magadla
Phone:
+27 (0) 46 603 8664
Email:
s.magadla@ru.ac.za

Global knowledge production pivots on a racialized Western, European axis that stipulates the constitutive character of knowledge for all humanity. Philosophies, epistemic systems, ethical norms and values, and social institutional practices that are incompatible or discordant with the foundation, foundational assumptions, and canons of this white racialized axis are represented as defective, wrong, and misguided. The white racial reality that emerged out this racialized axis has both been globalized and become the default standard of knowledge. However, a new pathway exists that requires centering ourselves, discovering who we are, and projecting that being outward. It calls for an awareness of ourselves within the context and cru-cible of our African cultures and heritages rather than an awareness of ourselves in a white Euro-pean or EuroAmerican ideology of self. The presentist ideology of self, identity, experience, and sensibility that are constructed on broadminded racelessness is ineradicably rootless. It flits and whips about tragically in the gale force wind of global racism.

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