Dependence on ‘Western knowledge’ Slated

BY: .

The importance placed on ‘Western knowledge’ was slated at a graduation ceremony in Durban for participants in the Capacity Building Training Programme on Indigenous Knowledge Systems Epistemologies and Research Methodologies. 

The four-month course was conducted by the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation Centre in Indigenous Knowledge Systems (CIKS) based at UKZN in collaboration with the Moses Kotane Institute. 

Chairperson of the National Arts Council of South Africa and member of DST-NRF CIKS Board, Professor Moses Nkondo, delivered the keynote address. A former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Venda, Professor Nkondo highlighted the importance of IKS and slated the dependence on ‘Western systems of knowing’.

He cautioned against relying on western knowledge. ‘America’s knowledge is derived from an American experience.’

Professor Nkondo emphasised the importance of learning in one’s own language, saying: ‘You will never be respected anywhere in the world unless you learn in your own language.’

One of the facilitators of the workshop, Professor Yonah Seleti from the DST, emphasised the importance of IKS contributing to the knowledge economy. ‘Knowledge is like money. If you don’t invest it, it will remain small,’ said Seleti.

The Moses Kotane Institute’s Mr Zithulele Zondi  said MKI wanted to build a repository of knowledge and  UKZN was best placed to drive this process as Professor Hassan Kaya was acknowledged as ‘one of the pillars of IKS’.

Kaya, the Director of the DST/NRF CIKS, said the IKS research training programme was based on the acknowledgement that the test of any knowledge system was the extent to which it helped solve life problems. 

‘In South Africa, the National Development Plan (NDP) has identified specific real life problems facing the majority of the people, such as job creation, poverty eradication, poor education, uneven access to health, infrastructure, popular participation and social cohesion,’  said Kaya.

‘IKS researchers and other stakeholders including policy makers are faced with the challenges of creating social justice with regard to decolonising western ways of knowing, knowledge production and value systems which were imported into African societies through colonialism and other forms of imperialism including globalisation,’ he said.

Kaya said IKS was one of the most important aspects in the knowledge economy. He expressed gratitude to the Moses Kotane Institute and UKZN Management for their consistent support to the development and promotion of IKS.

Programme Director Ms Nolwazi Dlamini from the Provincial Department of Social Development encouraged participants to be role models in their communities by promoting the use of IKS. She emphasised the importance of strengthening indigenous knowledge.

The objectives of the training programme were to:

•    Build a cadre of researchers in KwaZulu-Natal trained in IKS epistemologies and research methodologies 

•    Facilitate the discovery and recovery of indigenous ways of knowing, knowledge production and their value systems as the basis of promoting sustainable development and community livelihood 

•   Critique the dominant paradigms based on the indigenous ways of knowing, knowledge production and value systems including their philosophical bases 

•    Theorise indigenous paradigms of knowledge production (research) and philosophies supported by specific case studies as the conceptual frameworks for indigenous research endeavours 

•   Interrogate power relations in current research processes.

Raylene Captain-Hasthibeer