Decolonisation of knowledge, epistemicide, participatory research and higher education

Abstract

What 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.