Rarely does a book on the philosophy of higher education assemble such a valuable range of viewpoints from the “Mother Continent”. However, Chronicles on African Philosophy of Higher Education achieves exactly that. The best way to describe this book is as rigorous yet accessible. There are more insightful viewpoints chronicled into its 12 chapters than most academic volumes three times its size. As such, I take great pleasure in contributing this foreword.
The general aim of a philosophical inquiry focused on higher education is to articulate its fundamental assumptions, justifications, and functions. As I have suggested elsewhere (see Bosio, 2021; Bosio & Waghid, 2022; Giroux & Bosio, 2021; McLaren & Bosio, 2022; Veugelers & Bosio, 2021), one of the main goals of higher education is to encourage a reconfiguration of learners’ responsibilities in the direction of an orientation that upholds the notion that ‘knowing without acting is insufficient’. Yet, the discourse on higher education continues to suffer, in many cases, from a prevailing Euro-centric/Western-centric focus (Dussel, 1993; Escobar, 2008) where “under the spell of neo-liberalism and the magic of the media promoting it, modernity and modernization, together with democracy, are being sold as a package trip to the promised land of happiness” (Mignolo, 2007: 450). Thankfully, higher education and its philosophies have undergone a slow yet critical “decolonial shift” over the previous ten years. This shift, which I and other colleagues (see for example Barnett, 2017, 2019) consider ‘feasibly utopian’ involves the potential creation of new links between universities, humanity and the world at large. It stimulates discussions about local and global citizenry, praxis, reflexive dialogue, social change, critical awareness de-colonialism, humanity empowerment, eco-critical perspective, democracy, value-pluralism, and caring ethics in higher education more prominent (Bosio, 2023; Bosio & Torres, 2019; Bosio & Waghid, 2022b; Torres & Bosio, 2020a, 2020b). These discussions are shaped by constructing, de-constructing and re-constructing notions of social justice, critical and transformative theories, and ideas from living philosophy, such as those of the philosophers Jacques Ranciere, Enrique Dussel, Pablo Escobar, Jacques Derrida, and Paulo Freire. From this perspective, the higher education field has been calling for more inquiry into cases in the Global South.
Hence, this book fills a crucial requirement. It brings together a diverse group of educational researchers, including some well-versed in philosophical ideas, some highly skilled in specific programs and methods, and others who address the larger social context of the African philosophy of higher education. As Yusef Waghid – in my view, one of South Africa’s most talented and innovative
Yet, as Philip Higgs points out in the closing section, the book remains open to a ‘fusion of epistemologies’ which seeks to integrate indigenous African and European forms of knowledge and values in higher education. Hence, this book proposes theoretically and practically grounded chapters from scholars sharing their perspectives on the philosophy of higher education in relation to research, teaching and learning in Africa. Specifically, the book contributors discuss the African philosophy of higher education in relation to post-apartheid South Africa, Ubuntu-inspired rhythmic care, Ubuntu as social justice, cultivating a culture of mutuality in a multicultural society, accounting pedagogy, human formation and civil society development, quality assurance and promotion, educational technology, and the politics of ‘Africanness’. There are also interesting historical and contemporary analyses from Zimbabwe and Somalia. To examine these and other related themes, this book invites readers to unique perspectives, challenges, and strategies for constructing and implementing the African philosophy of higher education that would help students to gain socio-political efficacy, a sense of emancipation and an appreciation for the value of culture as, potentially, an element of ‘resistance to foreign domination’ (Cabral, 1974).
Collectively, the book reflexively scrutinises the intricacies that typify the notion of philosophy of higher education in the “Mother Continent”. Poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organiser, and anti-colonial leader Amilcar Cabral (1980) suggests:
A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if, without complexes and without underestimating the importance of positive accretions from the oppressor and other cultures, they return to the upward paths of their own culture, which is nourished by the living reality of its environment, and which negates both harmful influences and any kind of subjection to foreign culture. Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.
As asserted by Cabral’s concept of “culture as an element of resistance”, the field of higher education, particularly the African philosophy of higher education, should not be construed as a lofty pursuit. The African philosophy of higher education concerns itself primarily with the cultural and philosophical tenets that coalesce to imbue knowledge and values with significance and worth, an area that the scholars in this publication thoroughly scrutinise. Chronicles on African Philosophy of Higher Education is not solely intended for the consumption of academics. It should also occupy the desks of policymakers, government officials, and international researchers. This book provides an exceptional insight into higher education philosophy from an African-centred perspective.
Emiliano Bosio
Professor of Education, Toyo University, Japan
Guest Editor, UNESCO-IBE Prospects, Comparative Journal of Curriculum, Learning, and Assessment, Genève, Switzerland
Research Committee Member Centre for Global Nonkilling (CGNK) Honolulu, USA
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