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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Remi Alapo
Isaiah Z. Chabala
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2025.04.005
City University of New York, New York, USA; State University of New York, Oneonta, New York, USA; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria
Visionary Empowerment, Inc., New York, USA
This study explores the epistemic imperative to decolonize African education systems by centering indigenous philosophies such as Ubuntu and introducing the Ubuntu Pedagogy as a pedagogical model. Ubuntu pedagogy transforms teacher-learner relationships, it provides a replicable model for relational learning, community partnerships, and reassert the dignity of indigenous epistemologies. The paper examines how language, knowledge production, and pedagogy can be restructured to reflect African epistemologies and educational sovereignty. This research also explores the relationship between mother tongue instruction and cognitive access to learning. Through a qualitative literature analysis of case studies and African scholarly discourse, this paper highlights the continued marginalization of indigenous knowledge systems and the need to embed culturally relevant teaching methodologies. The findings support the broader question of whether there exists an epistemological base for knowledge independence or production within African and Afro-Diasporic contexts, revealing culturally coherent frameworks of learning that resist colonial dominance and an exploration of reclaiming African indigenous knowledge systems for educational and cultural sovereignty.
African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS), Afro-Diasporic education, African education systems, Curriculum decolonization, Decolonial curriculum, Education policy reform, Epistemic Justice, Indigenous epistemologies, Knowledge sovereignty, Postcolonial theory, Ubuntu pedagogy, Ubuntu philosophy
Remi Alapo, Isaiah Z. Chabala. (2025). Knowledge Production Beyond Coloniality: Epistemic Sovereignty in African and Afro-Diasporic Institutions. Philosophy Study, July-Aug. 2025, Vol. 15, No. 4, 176-186.
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