Decolonization of Postgraduate Education Through Indigenous Two-Eyed Seeing Methodology

Introduction

This chapter explores the benefits of the Two-Eyed Seeing theoretical framework to decolonizing postgraduate education in the African context. Universities and other higher learning institutions are key to the creation, dissemination, and legitimation of knowledge within societies (Stein, & Andreotti, 2016). These institutions significantly influence what is considered legitimate knowledge and how society is organized (Akena, 2012). However, studies show higher learning institutions “overwhelmingly reflect Western frameworks in their structures, processes, physical spaces and in what is taught and how” (Burke, Hobenshield, & Campbell, 2020, para. 1). Recent times have therefore witnessed repeated calls to decolonize higher learning institutions (Burke, Hobenshield, & Campbell, 2020; De Sousa Santos, 2019; Mbembe, 2016; Nyamnjoh, 2019; Ocholla, 2020; Stein, & Andreotti, 2016). De Sousa Santos (2019) suggests that “The decolonization of the university must be carried out both in the global “South and in the global North, even though the tasks and processes in question may be different in each case” (p.221). Abidogun and Falola (2020) observed, “the question of epistemic and ontological erasures in the academy is so huge for any scholar to be silent on” (p. x). Particularly in the African context, critical to the call to decolonize universities is the need to create space for Indigenous knowledge in the curricula, and pedagogy of higher learning programs (Nyamnjoh, 2019; Ocholla, 2020). According to Abidogun and Falola (2020), “We must continually recognize the complex structural forces that shape what is deemed and is conventionally established as “knowledge” worth pursuing and how such knowledge is disciplined and regulated in academic/intellectual spaces” (p.x). The integration of Indigenous knowledge into learning programs has also been referred to as epistemic decolonization (Kessi, Marks, & Ramugondo, 2020). According to the scholars, “Epistemic decolonization refers to the redemption of worldviews and theories and ways of knowing that are not rooted in, nor oriented around Euro-American theory” (p.274). The reclaiming of Indigenous knowledge can be found across universities in Africa (Kaya & Seleti, 2013; Tsikata, n.d.North-West University, 2023). Evidence shows the resurgence in IKS “is about reclaiming and liberation of our marginalized, discounted, and delegitimized epistemes as African peoples” (Abidogun &Falola, 2020, p. xi). Following this, Nyoni (2019) concludes, “Africa must completely rethink, deconstruct, reframe, reconstruct the Eurocentric and colonial curricula as well as teaching methods at universities” (p.2).

However, in the African context, there is a gap in current literature when it comes to proposing methodological frameworks for achieving decolonization in higher learning and how they can address the power imbalances between Indigenous and Western worldviews. Indigenous People do not want their knowledge to be subsumed under Western knowledge systems. Power imbalances exist between Indigenous and Western worldviews (Chavez, Williams, & Scalice, 2021; Robinson, 2022). Addressing these power relations is key if genuine decolonization is to be achieved especially given that the structures currently existing within most universities privilege Western knowledge (Kessi, Marks, & Ramugondo, 2020). For example, the culture of writing is favoured over the oral sharing of knowledge. We acknowledge some of the approaches proposed by scholars’ collaborative approach (see Masenya, 2022), and conceptual decolonization (see Bolarinwa, 2022) but none of these explicitly address power imbalances between Indigenous and Western worldviews.