Last year I wrote an opinion piece on the importance of indigenous knowledge, especially in healing practices. It detailed the origins of modern vaccines as an old, culturally appropriated African practice that was instrumental in fighting smallpox in 1700s Europe. That piece is perhaps even more significant this year, as many Africans are afraid of the Covid-19 vaccine. The hesitancy comes from a distrust of Western medicine, which has been responsible for many atrocities all over the world, as well as the SA biological warfare created by the apartheid government and led by Wouter Basson, who was dubbed “Dr Death”.
African knowledge systems have come a long way — from being overlooked as valuable sciences or misrepresented by Western scholars, who for a long time saw themselves as the only suitable custodians of our experiences, ideals, history, culture and knowledge. Today, though a lot more needs to be done, we are seeing a rise in African intellectuals, practices and solutions. In the academy, we see this in the calls for decolonised education, which has emphasised the importance of Southern African scholarly contributions locally and internationally.
I want to argue that we are limited by a type of epistemological slavery, where we use conflicting Western systems of knowledge production in producing African knowledge.
In our day-to-day lives, we also see this shift towards reclaiming African solutions to deal with modern-day challenges. Practices such as visiting sangomas/traditional healers and the general practising of African traditional religion were seen as taboo or often labelled as hedonism. Many were forced to acknowledge their ancestors or perform sacrifices in private. But today, many are openly practising their cultural rituals when they want to give thanks for good fortune, when they are struggling to find employment and for physical and emotional healing that individuals or the collective needs. Though not “scientifically verified”, many believe the African herb umhlonyane helped during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially during the major waves that overwhelmed and threatened to cripple our healthcare system. Many turned to this herb in the belief that it was a solution to help them fight Covid-19. Umhlonyane is commonly used by sangomas for a variety of reasons - to boost the immune system, for patients with illnesses that attack the respiratory system and many other things. This type of revitalisation and mainstreaming of indigenous knowledge systems and epistemological pedagogies can undo challenges such as vaccine hesitancy and general distrust of biomedicine, while promoting African knowledge.
The missing link
Despite these and many other positive strides that place African knowledge at the forefront, something is still missing, because we are still far from where we need to be as a continent. There are many things we can draw from to make sense of why the progress is slow. We could draw from the usual arguments around the missing, undervalued African renaissance. We could also argue that while African ideals are gaining prominence, they are often only invoked as an “alternative” or afterthought. Arguably, even with umhlonyane, it was only from desperation that people turned to it. All of these are valid, but I also want to argue that we are limited by a type of epistemological slavery, where we use conflicting Western systems of knowledge production in producing African knowledge. We rely on Western methodologies for knowledge production, Western schooling systems for how we engage with and use the knowledge, and even Western systems for how we store and preserve the knowledge.
Trapping African knowledge in Western epistemology
The April Cape Town fire, which spread to the University of Cape Town and destroyed the African Studies library, is one illustration of the danger of trapping African knowledge in Western epistemological systems. Much of what was lost in the fire was work that will most likely be lost forever; it is possible that no other records of it exist. The issue is that in Africa, knowledge is communally produced, shared and owned. Western systems encourage the containment and individual ownership of knowledge. Traditionally, African knowledge is often shared in the sense that the process of producing and sharing this knowledge is done as a collective and is built into the day-to-day practices rather than being crafted as a separate experience in the way mainstream Western education and research is done.
Reimagining African epistemology
There is an important method of passing down useful skills that you still find in African households today. As children, we often hated it because it took us away from our games, watching TV or general leisure time. As Zulus, we refer to it as ukuthunywa/thuma — the English translation of “running errand” does not adequately represent what it means, but it will do. I want to argue that this practice has traditionally been an important epistemological tool for producing and sharing knowledge. As a child growing up in a family of farmers, for example, you are taught how to be a farmer through these “errands”. You might start off with small requests, such as having to watch while the grown-ups or older children perform certain tasks; as time goes on, you are expected to take on more and more responsibilities in the family trade or even in helping neighbours and other community members. Even when it came to storing and preserving knowledge, it was done in such a way that it was still easily accessible. It would be stored as rock art, songs and performances, everyday crafts and practices. And contrary to Western beliefs that Africans never wrote or documented, knowledge was even stored in inscriptions such as the Egyptian hieroglyphics, Meroitic script, Nsibidi, Ge’ez and Adinkra.
When we move away from ukuthunywa towards the more Western mainstream, some challenges arise. Students are almost exclusively taught in theoretical ways, separate from their everyday experiences, which makes it difficult to understand and value the knowledge and its place in society. Knowledge goes from being communally owned to being owned by an individual researcher or institution, which limits who has access to the information, who has the right to use it and even limitations on how it can be used. At times, even the communities from which the knowledge originally came are limited by copyright laws. I want to argue that if we had created African knowledge using African practices or possible methodologies such as ukuthunywa, the loss of the UCT African Studies section wouldn’t have felt so bad because the knowledge would be actively existing in society and the ability to recreate and redocument it would feel within reach.
The freeing of our indigenous knowledge systems requires that we shift from looking outwards for solutions. For example, instead of looking towards dangerous fossil fuel and expensive Western renewable energy solutions to address our ongoing energy crisis, why not look inward and invest in our own indigenous methods of creating cheaper, sustainable biogas using animal and food waste. Imagine if we did it in ways that empowered black rural women, the custodians of this knowledge, so that while dealing with energy issues, we simultaneously address poverty and environmental degradation. What would it look like if we continued to nurture and encourage this and similar practices? Could other important scientific innovations emerge from it? Could it grow to the level of informing global discourse? Could we finally be uhuru?
Shange is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of the Free State
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.