Reconnecting with Indigenous knowledge in education : exploring possibilities for health and well-being in Xhora, South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY : Owing to coloniality, Eurocentric and western thinkers have been privileged in knowledge production while African indigenous thinkers and knowers have been subjugated.Consequently, western knowledge has been described as universal knowledge, while indigenous people's knowledges remain characterized as backward and primitive. In this arrangement, the current education system reproduces inequities of knowledges. How this knowledge arrangement influences the persisting negative health status among indigenouspeople, and the role of formal schooling in this, remains unexplored in South Africa and beyond.There is a need to explore and describe from the perspectives of indigenous people the potential relevance of indigenous knowledges in transforming the formal education system for better health and well-being.Using case study design supported by narrative inquiry as methodological frameworks, I facilitated a case of narratives with AmaBomvane in Xhora (Eastern Cape province, SA) to:• describe AmaBomvane's rural experience of the influence of the formal educationsystem on their Indigenous traditions and knowledges and their links to health andwell-being;• explore what stakeholders in these communities (elders, youth and teachers) identify as some of the Indigenous knowledges and ways of teaching and learning; and• explore how the identified knowledges and teaching and learning strategies ofAmaBomvane can inform curriculum development and implementation in the formal schooling system.The case study provided contextual boundedness and situatedness to the research, while narrative inquiry uncovered the stories that formed the basis for exploring and describing the case in question. The participants played an active role in guiding the research process.Indigenous methods (talking circles and storytelling using the sagacity approach) were used to collect narrative, primary data from residents of four sampled villages. In-depth interviews with teachers and principals from schools across the villages and other methods such asresearcher observations and spontaneous conversations were used. The sagacity approach, reflexivity, reciprocity and continuous relationship-building grounded these methods.A case of seven co-constructed narratives highlighted three typologies (Amaqaba,Amagqobhoka, and Agonizers: the uncomfortable in-betweeners) related to the complex interactions and dynamics between formal schooling and the communities and/or homes.These typologies reveal the intersecting operations of coloniality of power, being, knowledge and doing. The literacies of AmaBomvane challenge the academy by bringing considerable insight into our understanding of knowledge itself, learning and the purpose of education andcurriculum. The inseparable link between everyday doing, knowing and being washighlighted as central to knowledge production. AmaBomvane's conceptualization of knowledge also highlighted an inextricable link between health and education, thus advocating for an education that enhances living well.In conclusion, colonial education emerged as a potential negative social determinant of AmaBomvane's health as it produces people who are deeply alienated from themselves, their lands, cultures, ancestors, languages and knowledges. Its historical roots, forced assimilationand the unquestionable characteristic of curriculum create a colonising attitude amongst learners and educators. I therefore argue that coloniality and colonial education be recognised as broader social determinants of ill health. I argue that centering indigenous knowledges and cultures within the formal schooling curriculum may contribute to strengthening positive indigenous identities, thus contributing to better physical, social, mental, emotional andspiritual health and well-being. There is an urgent need to prepare educators who are socially conscious and competent to facilitate a health-enhancing curriculum that enables learners to live well. Given the revealed inextricable link between health and education, I also recommend that South African national curriculum immerse health and well-being as a corearea of learning. I have thus developed an indigenous-decolonial framework forreconstructing curriculum for health and well-being as a guide.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University