Decolonised Knowledge
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Item Decolonisation of knowledge, epistemicide, participatory research and higher education(2017) Hall, Budd L.; Tandon, RajeshWhat does the word ‘knowledge’ refer to, and whose knowledge is recognized within higher education? In this paper, Dr. Budd Hall draws on some 40 years of collaborative work on knowledge democracy. Hall suggests that higher education institutions today are working with a very small part of the extensive and diverse knowledge systems in the world. Following de Sousa Santos, Hall illustrates how Western knowledge has been engaged in epistemicide, or the killing of other knowledge systems. Community-based participatory research is about knowledge as an action strategy for change and about the rendering visible of the excluded knowledges of our remarkable planet. Knowledge stories, theoretical dimensions of knowledge, democracy, and the evolution of community-based participatory research partnerships are highlighted.Item Non-formal adult education as an entry point for community organisation(0000) Ginny; Shrivastava, OmHow can adult education be leveraged to organise communities? Non formal adult education, by virtue of its flexibility and close alignment with local needs, offers a strong entry point for community organisation. In this article, Ginny and Om Srivastava outline how adult education can be operationalised not merely as a literacy intervention but as a participatory process rooted in people’s lived realities aimed towards individual and social development. They emphasise that the core aim is not limited to reading and writing, but to enable individuals to understand their social conditions, develop critical awareness, and begin to act collectively. Literacy, functional knowledge, and consciousness raising are seen as interconnected pathways through which people can recognise their own potential and organise for change. The article further details how such programmes must be grounded in the community through immersion, participatory methods, and locally relevant materials. Adult education centres, when designed as shared spaces of dialogue and reflection, can evolve into forums for collective decision making and action. In this sense, adult education becomes not an end in itself, but a starting point for building confidence, leadership, and sustained community organisation.Item Seeing like a citizen’ re-claiming citizenship in a neoliberal world. November 28-29,2005(Institute of Development Studies, 2005-11-29) Gaventa, JohnWhat does it mean to be a citizen, and how is that meaning shifting under neoliberalism? In this paper, Prof. John Gaventa discusses how citizenship has increasingly moved away from a rights centered approach towards a more consumption-based approach. Depoliticised notions of citizenship have taken precedence under neoliberalism, where individuals are framed as consumers, users, voters, or beneficiaries rather than as rights bearing actors in their own right. He situates this shift within broader transformations of the state as well, which is not simply withdrawing but is being reconfigured to actively advance market logics, often weakening its role as a guarantor of rights. Through this paper, Gaventa proposes “reversing the telescope” by centering the perspectives of citizens as actors in development processes. This approach foregrounds what he terms thick forms of citizenship, where participation, contestation, and collective action are central. Moving beyond market, state and democracy first forms of citizenship, he argues that placing citizens first enables a re-politicisation of citizenship, strengthening claims to rights, accountability, and more meaningful democratic engagement.Item Partnering with higher education institutions for SDG 17: The role of higher education institutions in multi-stakeholder partnerships(2018-04) Tandon, Rajesh; Chakrabarti, KaustuvItem Decolonization of knowledge, epistemicide, participatory research, and higher education(UCL Press, 2017) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, RajeshThis article raises questions about what the word ‘knowledge’ refers to. Drawn from some 40 years of collaborative work on knowledge democracy, the authors suggest that higher education institutions today are working with a very small part of the extensive and diverse knowledge systems in the world. Following from de Sousa Santos, they illustrate how Western knowledge has been engaged in epistemicide, or the killing of other knowledge systems. Community-based participatory research is about knowledge as an action strategy for change and about the rendering visible of the excluded knowledges of our remarkable planet. Knowledge stories, theoretical dimensions of knowledge democracy and the evolution of community-based participatory research partnerships are highlighted.Item The democratization of the production of knowledge(1988-05-03) Hall, Budd LItem An emerging global civil society? Implications for learning and work(2000) Hall, Budd LItem Participatory research: An approach for change(International Council for Adult Education, 1975) Hall, Budd LHow can research be imagined as an educational and transformative process rather than an extractive one? In this reflective essay, Dr. Budd Hall examines the shortcomings embedded within dominant principles of social science research. Drawing from his experiences as a researcher and his interactions with local education officers in the 1970s, he reflects on how research practices often alienate communities from the very processes meant to understand them. The essay explores key concerns around the ideological foundations of research, the ways in which social problems are oversimplified, and the distance from adult education principles. In doing so, it invites researchers to reimagine research as a dialectic, dialogic and ongoing educational experience which is oriented towards the liberation of human creative potential rather than the production of “neutral” knowledge.Item Beyond epistemicide: Knowledge democracy and higher education(UNESCO Chair, 2015) Hall, Budd LAs universities grapple with their role in a world marked by inequality and ecological crisis, the question of whose knowledge counts has become impossible to ignore. This paper situates higher education within a longer history of epistemicide, the systematic erasure of indigenous and marginalized ways of knowing, and examines how knowledge democracy offers a path toward repair. By drawing on examples of community-based research and indigenous scholarship, it argues for reimagining universities as sites of dialogue rather than dominance, where multiple epistemologies can coexist. The study underscores both the transformative promise and the unresolved tensions of this shift, positioning knowledge democracy less as a finished framework than as an unfolding experiment in rebalancing power and voice.