The ways in which Africa as a continent is study is still tied to Western theory and carries the germs of extractive research as criticized by many authors (Amina Maman, 2007, 2011; Charmaine Pereira and Dzodzi Tsikata, 2021). Although ongoing transformation exist in economic, geopolitical, and digital spheres, there remains a need for more researchers, students, and practitioners who can critically engage in research or reflection on how Africa is studied from the perspective of situated knowledge bell hooks, 1989; Haraway, 1988). In one sense, the above argument joins existing scholarly conversations about how colonial frameworks still shape what counts as African knowledge, further emphasizing the need to recognize that most enduring ruptures are epistemological. In today’s world, where society is changing in many ways, this panel approaches epistemological rupture as a collective intellectual project that aims to discuss academic practices that avoid repeating colonial ideas and instead promote collaborative methods, ways of knowing, and ethical approaches that are informed by diverse African perspectives and experiences, including counternarratives and African feminist epistemologies of knowledge co-creation and worldbuilding. Building on African and Africanist scholarship on methods, ethics, postionalities and decolonial epistemologies. This panelists will engage in conversations from various sites of fieldwork experiences and various ways of knowing that encourage epistemological rupture while offering transformative ways of rethinking African epistemology.
Please submit abstracts to Marie-Rose Tshite (tshitema@mail.uc.edu) and Anthonia Ishabiyi (ishabiao@mail.uc.edu) by September 6.
