This provocative book is anchored on the insurgent and resurgent spirit of decolonization of the twenty-first century. The author calls upon Africa to turn over a new leaf in the domains of politics, economy, and knowledge as it frees itself from imperial global designs and global coloniality.
With a focus on Africa and its Diaspora, the author calls for a radical turning over of a new leaf, predicated on decolonial turn and epistemic freedom. The key themes subjected to decolonial analysis include: (1) decolonization/decoloniality - articulating the meaning and contribution of the decolonial turn; (2) subjectivity/identity - examining the problem of Blackness (identity) as external and internal invention; (3) the Bandung spirit of decolonization as an embodiment of resistance and possibilities, development and self-improvement; (4) development and self-improvement - of African political economy, as entangled in the colonial matrix of power, and the African Renaissance, as weakened by undecolonized political and economic thought; and (5) knowledge - the role of African humanities in the struggle for epistemic freedom.
This groundbreaking volume opens the intellectual canvas on the challenges and possibilities of African futures. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of Politics and International Relations, Development, Sociology, African Studies, Black Studies, Education, History Postcolonial Studies, and the emerging field of Decolonial Studies.
With a focus on Africa and its Diaspora, the author calls for a radical turning over of a new leaf, predicated on decolonial turn and epistemic freedom. The key themes subjected to decolonial analysis include: (1) decolonization/decoloniality - articulating the meaning and contribution of the decolonial turn; (2) subjectivity/identity - examining the problem of Blackness (identity) as external and internal invention; (3) the Bandung spirit of decolonization as an embodiment of resistance and possibilities, development and self-improvement; (4) development and self-improvement - of African political economy, as entangled in the colonial matrix of power, and the African Renaissance, as weakened by undecolonized political and economic thought; and (5) knowledge - the role of African humanities in the struggle for epistemic freedom.
This groundbreaking volume opens the intellectual canvas on the challenges and possibilities of African futures. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of Politics and International Relations, Development, Sociology, African Studies, Black Studies, Education, History Postcolonial Studies, and the emerging field of Decolonial Studies.
"Frequently, discussions about decoloniality are delinked from discussions on development studies and questions of political-economy. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni bridges these literatures to produce an original intervention in African Studies and Postcolonial/Decolonial Studies with important implications to Latin America and Asia. The many contributions this book offers are of interest to many fields of scholarship. This is a must to read from the most important decolonial thinker in Africa today!" - Ramon Grosfoguel, University of California at Berkeley, USA
"This is a thoughtful agenda-setting contribution by a leading, passionate, committed voice, to the resilient issue of unequal encounters and dogmatic propensities in the production and circulation of meaning and value, which has received far less emancipatory scholarly attention beyond proliferating spurious rhetoric and prescriptive lip service." - Francis B. Nyamnjoh, University of Cape Town, South Africa
''Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni's is an important contribution to the current struggles for decolonization. At the forefront of his endeavor lies epistemology; to rethink thinking itself and make way for a new humanity. The book is a radical rupture with the mediocrity of Eurocentric knowledge institutionalized in the westernized universities across our world, and with the internal colonialism and cultural schizophrenia it produces in the global south. Solidly rooted in Africa, the book engages in a truly global decolonizing endeavor: that of working towards humanization, re-memberment, unity and action.'' - Julia Suárez-Krabbe, Roskilde University, Denmark
"This is a thoughtful agenda-setting contribution by a leading, passionate, committed voice, to the resilient issue of unequal encounters and dogmatic propensities in the production and circulation of meaning and value, which has received far less emancipatory scholarly attention beyond proliferating spurious rhetoric and prescriptive lip service." - Francis B. Nyamnjoh, University of Cape Town, South Africa
''Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni's is an important contribution to the current struggles for decolonization. At the forefront of his endeavor lies epistemology; to rethink thinking itself and make way for a new humanity. The book is a radical rupture with the mediocrity of Eurocentric knowledge institutionalized in the westernized universities across our world, and with the internal colonialism and cultural schizophrenia it produces in the global south. Solidly rooted in Africa, the book engages in a truly global decolonizing endeavor: that of working towards humanization, re-memberment, unity and action.'' - Julia Suárez-Krabbe, Roskilde University, Denmark