Philosophy through Indigenous Knowledge in the Global South

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Project Overview

This project is NIHSS funded project, part of the Catalytic Research Programme, within the rubric of ‘Transformation, Race, Culture, and Identity’, a R1 million grant from 2023 to 2024. 

Calls to decolonise academia by drawing on indigenous knowledge have become increasingly popular in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). Yet, curiously, Philosophy has not adverted to indigenous knowledge in its efforts to decolonise. This is particularly surprising in light of two factors. First, Philosophy, especially epistemology­—the theory of knowledge—is meant to be the primary custodian of theorising the knowledge enterprise. Second, decolonising this enterprise requires us precisely to theorise from our geo-cultural location, and hence to consult the indigenous knowledge of that location. The project fills this theoretical lacuna by investigating how indigenous knowledges from the Global South can help us to reconceptualise central themes in core philosophical fields such as Epistemology, Ethics, and Philosophy of Science. The urgency of addressing this question cannot be overemphasised given how rapidly indigenous cultures are disappearing.

Conferences to Date

Research Dissemination to Date

Philosophy through Indigenous Knowledge Speaker Series to Date