Final Take - Decolonising the University

The main ideas from this information are: - The episode is about decolonizing the university within the South African context. - The guest, Matt, is a white male studying marine biology and is interested in changing the way things are done in academia. - The discussion centers around the need to decolonize the university and make it more inclusive, as it has traditionally been dominated by white males. - The experience of decolonizing the university is often disconnected from studying about decolonization. - The knowledge sources in Western universities are predominantly from a few Western countries, which is problematic and excludes other forms of knowledge. - The integration of indigenous knowledge in science is often done in a forced and artificial way, which further perpetuates the problem. Hello listeners and thank you so much for joining me and our guest for another episode of Decolonizing Visions. I'd like to start us off with a quote from Steve Biko. There is a growing awareness of the role the black students may be called upon to play in the emancipation of their community. The students realize that the isolation of the black intelligentsia from the rest of the black society is a disadvantage to the black people as a whole. I think this is a really good starting point, but before we get started, today we're joined by Matt to chat about decolonizing the university and what this means and look like within the South African context. Weaving through what a university actually is and positioning ourselves into different ways of seeing the university and how this should be, or rather become, from a decolonialist perspective. Hi Matt, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks very much for having me. Awesome. Nice to be here. Yeah, so would you like to just introduce yourself and give us a little bit more of a background to who you are and where you come from? So, I'm a white male from a science background. I'm currently doing my PhD in marine biology, which is, I mean it's not important what it is on, but I'll tell you for the sake of this. It's the effects of climate change on whales and trying to understand their migratory behavior better. But I'm just very happy to be involved in a podcast like this because it is something that's close to my heart and it's an idea that I want to develop and take forward in my career. And I do want to change the way things are being done because I think they're doing the change. So, I just want to say again, thanks for having me. Thank you. It's really an honor. And before we begin, I'd like to take this moment also to acknowledge my position as a privileged individual within the South African context, specifically who had the opportunity to get government funding and housing at the time I'd done my undergrad studies. Unfortunately, as I know, a lot of my peers in South Africa currently do not have the same opportunities and cannot relate. So, the main topic of today's discussion will be surrounding the university and more specifically decolonizing the university. I can say from my honors course I'm doing now, which is, it's basically, I would say, a manifesto on decoloniality. One of the topics we were engaging with was decolonizing the university and this is such a new topic for me. I don't know if you've ever heard of, engaged with the concept and process of decolonizing the university. I mean, I've definitely encountered it and it is something that every student has to engage with, particularly in terms of BEE and trying to transform and make the university a more inclusive space. Just exactly that. Studying and science and academia and all of these ventures has been very much traditionally a white male thing. It's been dominated by white males to the point where the whole system was developed within that realm to benefit. And also, what I can say, when I say acknowledging it or rather engaging with decolonizing the university, I think that's only been taken place through a physical experience. So, Rhodes Muscle, the student protests. For me, when I just joined my undergrad, my first year was when the protests started and throughout my undergrad was just that all these protests were starting and it was quite a shock to the system because you're coming from high school where you don't actually engage with any of the issues, the real issues that every day we as South Africans are facing and at least as a person of color who is facing. So, I think for me, the physicality of experiencing decolonizing the university was and still is something that is unfortunately delinked from studying about decolonizing the university. So, sorry, that was just a side point to what you were saying. I mean, the protests for me were a real kind of eye-opener because I came from a private school and I went to university thinking, you know, this is a cool place, this is fun and then the protests and all those movements really made me realize that most people are struggling to get into university, to pay for university. I mean, these ideas for me were, I didn't really know any, you know, that this was the case really. I mean, I knew that people in the country were struggling but it was really like an eye-opener for me. And I think that's quite a good starting point to draw us into one of the more specific topics that we'll chat about today is the fact of like the knowledge sources, where are our knowledge coming from, where is our knowledge coming from. So, for me too, you hear about it, you don't necessarily live it, you know what's happening on the outside, you don't necessarily, you're not taught what's really happening through knowledge sources such as schools, universities, you know, just like various institutions that you are exposed to. And I'd like to bring up another quote from Ramon Grossfugl actually, which I think is very fitting to this discussion. So, the point I have to start with is the Western university is so heavily reliant on a sort of universality of knowledge. And it's from a paper of Grossfugl in 2013 where he states that in westernized universities the knowledge produced by other epistemologies, cosmologies and world views arising from other world regions with diverse time, space, dimensions and characterized by different geopolitics and body politics of knowledge are considered inferior in relation to the superior knowledge produced by the few western men of five countries that compose the canon of thought in the humanities and the social sciences. It continues to say the knowledge produced from the social historical experiences and world views of the global self, also known as non-westerners, are considered inferior and not part of the canon of thought. Moreover, knowledge produced by women, western or non-western, is regarded as inferior and an outcast to the canon of thought. The foundational structures of knowledge of the westernized university are simultaneously epistemically racist and sexist. This overwhelming Eurocentric paradigm in theological scholarship leads to subjection, nothingfication, scandalization, inferiorization and dehumanization of other forms of human life. Thus, the darker side of Eurocentrism as a grand narrative of modernity, coloniality, qualitatively and quantitatively means empire, slavery, colonization, capitalism and cultural imperialism. So I think that quote is very loaded and my apologies for not getting a few words right. But I think from what I get from that quote is the fact that a lot of our knowledge sources are coming from one place and in fact that is really problematic and it doesn't necessarily happen on such a grand level as described in the quote. It actually happens on minuscule levels which I could say the household, the church, the school, the cricket grounds, you know, of where we as humans just interact with on a day to day basis. That's where this little atrocities are happening where we are only getting knowledge sources from one place. So I think in that way and through that definition I think it's a little bit kind of specified or like not watered down but made simpler because I think her adds quite a lot of sexy words to it. But for instance when he says, one thing I really like about this quote is that he says, you know, superior knowledge is produced by these few western men from five countries that composes the canon of thought in the humanities and the social sciences. I think it speaks volumes to the people who are teaching our students what our students are being taught and I don't know if this is the case in the sciences but from a humanities perspective it is very much. I remember having one professor who was a male colored professor and he said he doesn't want to be identified as a colored person and he is identifying as black which I think is a different conversation for a different day but I remember vividly feeling a sense of like awe, a sense of shock, a sense of awkwardness as well as to having a person of color and also someone I can just through the skin or the color of his skin I can identify with and I don't think that that's ever happened to me in my whole schooling career. It's always been a white person because I went to schools, predominantly white schools. I think it's, yeah, for me it was like whoa, I've got this, you know, colored professor, what? And yeah, so I don't know what it is like in the sciences, like I said, so do you think you could add a little insight to... Yeah, so going on to, you know, in terms of like the way that science for now has been trying to rectify this idea that there's one source of knowledge and that's the science and that's the western, you know, forms and all the other forms that fit in and the way that I've seen this trying to be rectified is, for example, there will be a paper saying the use of indigenous knowledge in this and to me that immediately puts you on the back burner because it's treating indigenous knowledge as this like very contrived add-on into the system and it's already creating this separation between, okay, we have this form of knowledge which is the real form of indigenous knowledge and we're just going to add on with a little bit of indigenous knowledge to please and it's being integrated, for me, it shouldn't have the distinction as indigenous knowledge. It should, all sources of knowledge should be evaluated as just knowledge. So really by definition I think it's putting itself in a pitfall. So that's the way that I've encountered at least trying to incorporate other forms of knowledge is that it's done in a very forced and artificial way and it puts it in a sort of box. So that is my one criticism of the way that I've seen things being done. But I think, yeah, it's a problem and that western knowledge and science is held on some kind of pedestal that we can't disrupt or disturb this framework we've created which I think is hokum. I think also from what she's saying I had this thought of there's this sense of fear of what if one would incorporate other different sources of knowledge because colonized communities and peoples have their own set of knowledge that has been developed, lived and experienced for thousands of years and I can almost make this, I have this image in my head where as soon as these people have been colonized it's like poof, gone. It's all this knowledge that they've created because then you talk about or then religion was introduced so their religion was seen as this witchy hocus pocus where in the main character, the protagonist was so proud of his community and as soon as the missionaries came, everybody was starting to convert to Christianity and he was one of the few people who was resisting that change and we see more as the book evolves that people are just starting to believe what the colonizers have told them or at least the missionaries in this case so again that source of knowledge that I think people fear to lose or to incorporate other sources of I think that's also an important point to make. Yeah and I think the word fear is a really important point because you know the whole, I mean colonialism a lot of it was stemmed from a fear of difference right and there was like a strong religious component to that where you know you fear your neighbor, you fear this and you have such a strong belief in the empire and in your colony and in your knowledge system that you have this instilled fear and skepticism for any kind of difference and I mean I feel that and it's something that everyone has to unlearn because everyone living in the colonial system in a sense they might lose colonize and for example I've noticed as soon as someone thinks about talking about incorporating other forms of medicine for example within the medicinal system I very skeptical and I think most people are skeptical about and they start saying oh well it needs to go and undergo clinical trials and I mean that's a whole other debate on its own because I think when you have people's lives in their hands, in your hands you take it seriously but yeah I think it's just interesting to think about that. Actually you bring up a really interesting point, I know that there's this discussion on the roles whales play in the current like you know save the world climate change, sorry I'm just scraping for words but it's not as superflous as I just said it was, do you perhaps have any examples in your field? Well there's quite a kind of a big topic at the moment especially within the international whaling committee because you know I've devoted my life to whales now and the debate is that Western imperialism, industrialization, exploitation, colonialism drove most of the world's whale species close to extinction and whales in a sense lit up the world, I mean it's amazing you just read up a list of what whales were used for, I mean from the bones, the baleen which are their kind of like teeth like structures and the obvious one is their blubber for oil and energy for lamps and everything but in 1986 the international whaling commission had to put a monetary of a ban on all whaling and basically whales, there were hardly any whales left and a lot of indigenous communities relied on whales including in South Africa there's evidence that the Khoisan would eat whales if there was a whale that stranded on the beach, they would cut it up and bury it in the sand, so in South Africa there's a history of whale consumption, not only the Khoisan, but the big topic is for example indigenous communities in the Arctic and all over have harvested whales for many thousands of years and were unable to do so and also this monetarium and this ban on whaling impacted these communities and actually they had to go and provide quotas that for example I don't know the correct terminology for this community in Alaska so I'm not even going to try but they've been given a monetarium for... Is it possibly the Inuit? Yeah, I think there's many. Yeah, we do acknowledge that. But anyway, so they've been given a quota to harvest a certain number of whales, I think it's five every year because it's obvious, I mean if whales were being harvested at that level, pre-industrial levels, they would have never been close to extinction, they'd be harvested completely sustainably and it was colonialism and imperialism and globalization that inevitably resulted in the extinction of whales. So it's kind of two-fold, you know, colonialism is seen as driving whales to extinction but then also directly impacting indigenous communities who've... I think there's, for us, we're unaware of the many uses one whale would have had for one community or, you know, one tribe. I've got no understanding or familiarity with... But I never thought of it that way and it's two-fold in that western expansion resulted in the extinction of the whales but then also this idea that you have this western authority that is able to impose a ban on all whaling and to make sure that this ban is carried out by fining people, by... And this extends to communities that had no, people that had no role in this whole system and yet they were told... Directly impacted by it and in such needing to transform or conform their lives to this colonial system. So I think that's the pervasive nature of coloniality and the West. Yeah, and this high horse that will do, Europeans will do anything in their power to increase their economic status, to accumulate power and wealth. And then once you've destroyed the environment beyond all possible means, then you try and impose all these conservation measures once you've got everything that you can out of the system. And then you're expecting, for example, Africa to suddenly start saying, oh, you guys should preserve the environment after we've taken everything out of it. It's perverse. It's perverse. I totally agree with you, although we have strayed very far from the topic to Antarctic regions. I think we should take it back to South Africa. Just for the, you know, just topic on decolonizing the university and I think what we were just speaking about now is possibly or is the fact that with everything that's just been said about, you know, for instance, Wales, I think a lot of knowledge about what we just spoke of does not exist within. I mean, I didn't really know any of this existed before talking to you. So there's a big possibility that a lot of people who are listening to this podcast right now and a lot of people who we know personally do not know that fact. And I think it just it does tie back into the fact that our knowledge sources are coming from one place and we're not, you know, there is very little incorporation or actually independence of other knowledge sources. So there's this big conglomerate, I think, of knowledge sources, which is the five men from the Western countries who are creating this knowledge sources. So I think that's very important. So, OK, I think we are really straightening off topic going back to the Wales. But I think I would like to just close us off, actually, with a few points on how we can, you know, just a few points on what should form part of decolonizing the Western University. But before we get there, I think it's important to just maybe delineate or to recognize what a Western University is. So, in my opinion, or, you know, just from my learnings and understandings, the Western University has become or rather is a blanket term for the standard structure of how knowledge is shared and produced and imposed on people who do not and cannot relate to the system of experience in the West through means of education. The university is, in fact, the Western University and is set on a knowledge bowl produced by a few that has become universal. And according to these few, that knowledge is superior and is supposed to be sufficient to explain the social and historical realities of the rest of the world. I think that ties back into the fact that knowledge has become this one-way road to how, you know, it's just like one, it's a one-sided relationship. And I guess the antithesis of the Western University then is what is called the pluriversity. The pluriversity, my sincere apologies to everyone who's listening. The pluriversity, which is essentially combating and critiquing this monumental force and insisting on including the lived experiences of the rest of the world to produce different knowledges and particularly those that have been excluded and often seen as inferior. Pluriversity calls for the decolonization, liberation, and Africanization of universities. Pluriversity calls to deconstruct universities. That's still modern colonialism, essentially. Because just, let's say, a couple of years ago, we still had Rose, Cecil John Rose's statue on the actual physical grounds of the University of Cape Town, which was pretty bizarre. So, you know, that physical representation of colonialism, I would say it's just the tip of the iceberg of decolonizing the university. So, now I come to the question, you know, what should form part of decolonizing the Western University? I've got three points laid out and I'd like you to add in and just to say if you agree or not. Firstly, curricular reformation is imperative. I know for a fact that this point is really significant in high schools and primary schools in South Africa because, yes, we learn about World War II, which essentially I don't think we should be learning about to the extent we are. So, to add on to reforming the curriculum is to include diverse perspectives and particularly from non-Western cultures and our indigenous cultures in South Africa because we are so diverse and we're so rich in different cultures, different knowledges, different sources of experiences and I think trying to force all of those into this like blind eye of Western history is pretty deaf, I would say. And secondly, institutional inclusivity demands a re-evaluation of hiring practices and representation. I think this comes back to me being in absolute shock at the fact that I had a person of color who was one of my first teachers. The university should actively seek to diversify its faculty, promoting inclusivity through multiplicity of perspectives and in doing so, this not only fosters an environment that reflects the globalized nature of academia but I argue that also enriches the learning experience for students and also at any time if you want to include. With respect to inclusivity and diversifying institutions and faculties, it's being implemented but I think there needs to be a bit more of a radical edge to the way we do things in the sense that at a policy level, people are trying to address things but if you speak to most lecturers and most people in positions where they're hiring, the way they look at it is a way, for example, to get more funding easily, a way to bolster their status within a society and people aren't actually seeing the fact that diversity has tremendous benefits. Just as a general principle and concept in the world, the more diverse opinions you get together, the more chance you have to get to the truth. And so rather than addressing it from just meeting some quota and criteria, which that should be the mechanism by which you get to it, we should start changing the language about how we view diversity and we should actually start looking at it as a means to an end, diversity as a means to improving our knowledge rather than just meeting some quota. Some vague percentage, you know. It's a beneficial part of society. And then also I think on a theoretical level, we need to think radically with respect to how we can start to deconstruct and dismantle this idea that science is this holy grail of knowledge that can't be changed, that can't be adjusted. And I think that's going to take some thinking and some radical ideas about how we can start to teach kids from a young age that actually science is just a fueling of your curiosity, whatever your curiosity might be. There's this method, which is actually just a method, that's what science is, that can test or develop any idea, no matter what it is. And I think that's also an important point to make it more accessible to anyone, that it's not actually an exclusive principle, it's actually incredibly inclusive because it's a common way in which you can test any idea you want. I think the most important part in getting there, or at least the first step in getting there, is then talking or teaching young kids in their own language. Because apparently science only exists, I would say, at least on the level at which I've interacted with it at a very English level, to which, you know, English is my first language. But a lot of students in South Africa, pupils, young kids in South Africa, they do not speak English at home. And I can assure you they do not breathe in English, they don't speak to their friends in English. So I think that is, if not the most important problem, is the fact that a lot of teachings is not happening in the mother tongue. So I think that's a good point for science especially, is to be able to engage with everyone in South Africa in their language. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think there's going to need, you know, we've gotten to a comfortable place in the world, and there's going to have to be some uncomfortability and some, a bit of a disruption to the status quo. I think that's the main thing. And a lot of that will be around dismantling fear of change within this institution. And also just dismantling, or rather not even dismantling, but acknowledging that fear does exist. Because if you recognize fear, and you're able to become somewhat comfortable with knowing that it exists within, but also be uncomfortable in that you want to change, I think that's the first step in decolonizing yourself, not anything. Because I think it starts with the self, decolonization starts within. And like you said, it's that fear that does need to exist. Because at this moment, there's this comfortability that a lot of people have. And I think this is a good point for us to say thank you and to have an entire discussion. It's been so great. And I want to say thank you again for joining us. I'd like to say thank you for having me. It was really, really useful. And I enjoyed it. Also, I hope you take some of this away and implement it or just bring up discussions within your faculty, within your field. And until we meet again. Thank you. I will. Thank you so much listeners. And we will see you on our next episode of Decolonizing Visions. Ciao.