Decolonization of Higher Education in South Africa

Western education still dominates the education terrain across Africa. For some people, the dominance is nothing but ‘academic imperialism,’ which is believed to have relegated African scholars to mere conduits of knowledge through which European and American scholarship and interests are protected and promoted. Consequently, a dissident voice is resonating in the African educational system, particularly South African education system, demanding the recognition of ‘home-grown’ knowledge to solve home-grown problems. This article engages the debate about decolonization of higher education in South Africa and asks the fundamental question of whether or not it is possible to achieve a fully decolonized curriculum in a society that is already cloaked and engulfed by capitalism and Western ideologies.

Academic Imperialism

When the disintegration of Western colonies in Africa and Asia ended the formal colonialism, the structures of dependency remained intact and were mushroomed to other countries in the region. One such dependency is academic dependency in which universities in much of Asia and Africa follow the curricula introduced in the colonial era. Although scholars put a great deal of efforts in challenging this academic imperialism, this dependency has been promoted by departments such as Department of English. Whereas “World Literature in English” or “Literary Studies” is gaining momentum around the world, the English literature programmes in Iranian universities are celebrating the Anglo-American canonical literature. By drawing on Syed Hussein Alatas’ concepts of “academic dependency,” this paper examines how the English literature programmes in Iran are promoting academic imperialism, which prompts the urgency of decolonisation of English literature. It also reveals how this decolonisation can be taken to its ultimate conclusion.

Academic publishing empires need to go

In response to the editorial “Open access and academic imperialism” by Burgman (2018) and signed by a large group of editors, we wish to express our disappointment with such a narrow and misleading interpretations of the recent attempts to make academic publishing more open, and what consequences this might have for the global conservation community. We highlight that the current guidelines of Plan S are open for comment until Feb 1st 2019 (see https://www.coalition-s.org/feedback). Instead of calling for a more nuanced approach – something that has been done for the past 20 years – we encourage everyone to actively participate in factoring in the nuances.

Academic publishing empires need to go

In response to the editorial “Open access and academic imperialism” by Burgman (2018) and signed by a large group of editors, we wish to express our disappointment with such a narrow and misleading interpretations of the recent attempts to make academic publishing more open, and what consequences this might have for the global conservation community. We highlight that the current guidelines of Plan S are open for comment until Feb 1st 2019 (see https://www.coalition-s.org/feedback). Instead of calling for a more nuanced approach – something that has been done for the past 20 years – we encourage everyone to actively participate in factoring in the nuances.

Academic Standards or Academic Imperialism? Zimbabwean perceptions of hegemonic power in the global construction of knowledge

University cultures in the Global North generate powerful definitions of what constitutes “knowledge” and “good research.” When we ask who gets to represent the “African perspective,” we find it is decreasingly an African. This article argues that resource inequalities alone cannot explain this exclusion of African scholarship. Hegemonic academic standards undervalue the more positivist research orientation found in southern African universities. The struggle is not over the validity of that orientation, but over who has the power to validate it. This analysis is based upon interviews with senior university research managers in Zimbabwe and on a public roundtable on Structural Inequalities in Global Academic Publishing.