Tag Archives: cultural imperialism

Videos of Conference Panel II: “Global Knowledge Asymmetries and Education”

Chair: Barbara Göbel (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Berlin)116_3059

Panelists:

Neeladri Bhattacharya (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Peter Kallaway (University of Cape Town)

David MacDonald (University of Guelph)

Hebe Vessuri (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia)

The question of which forms of knowledge are recognized as education – or in German “Bildung” – can be fundamentally contested. Therefore, the process that renders certain forms of knowledge education while excluding others needs to be problematized as an arena of (implicit) political struggle and as a way of wielding social power. Moreover, many regions outside Europe have been affected by colonial pasts. This panel seeks to address the complex topic of global knowledge asymmetries, by asking questions such as: What is the relationship between indigenous knowledge/education and external influences? To what extent have colonial legislation, the associated institutional structures and ideas of education, elite, etc. been impacting on (post-) colonial systems of education? What influence does the formation of the (nation-) state and subsequent politico-economic developments have on ideas and practices of inequality and education?

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The Ambiguities of Colonial Education

Conference Paper to be presented by Peter Kallaway

Peter Kallaway is an Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Western Cape and a Research Associate at the University of Cape Town. He is interested in the history of education in South Africa and British colonial Africa, particularly in the interaction between missionary educators, philanthropists, and colonial governments.

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South African Pre-School
(Photo: private)

The forms of knowledge that came to dominate the African colonial mission school curriculum, and later government schools, have often been criticised for their lack of sensitivity to African or indigenous culture and languages. This state was famously termed “cultural imperialism” in the 1970s and was said to have been one of the causes of the weakness of the educational systems that were inherited by the new national states in the independence era. For example, there was a move to promote an authentic heritage of knowledge (Indigenous Knowledge Systems, IKS) in South Africa after 1994 in keeping with this perceived need to transform public knowledge in line with the liberation politics of the contemporary order.

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