The student protests starting in 2015 added a new term to the lexicon of South African universities – decolonisation. It is of course a word with a long history dating back to the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s and extending to the postcolonial period to signal ongoing efforts to ‘undo’ the legacies of colonialism. But decolonisation had never been a prominent or sustained component of the struggle discourse under or after apartheid. The discursive terminologies of the struggle included terms like antiapartheid education, liberation pedagogy, reconstruction and development education, and of course that ubiquitous referent, transformation. Literally overnight, the word decolonisation rolled off the lips of activists, bannered everyday protests and initiated across mainly the formerly white campuses seminars, conferences and committees to determine meanings and methods for changing universities – their complexions, cultures and curricula.

This book brings together the best curriculum minds in South Africa to make sense of decolonisation as a signal moment in the century-old history of higher education in South Africa. What does the word even mean? Why does it emerge at this moment, more than 20 years into democracy? Where does the press for decolonisation come from – intellectually, socially, culturally and politically? How does it relate to associated concepts such as Africanisation or indigenous education or postcolonial education? Is decolonisation the appropriate response, substantively and strategically, to the complex of problems gripping the education system in South Africa? Does the term decolonisation carry much validity in a country last formally colonised more than 100 years ago? Or is decolonisation simply a byword for proxy discontents in education and society? And what does decolonisation imply for the nature, purposes and politics of curriculum?

THE CONCEPTUAL ORIENTATION OF THE BOOK

In the literature, decolonisation is a concept that has been applied broadly to various things, from changes to the artworks of a university to the social transformation of entire nations. The specific focus of this book, however, is primarily on decolonisation as applied to the university curriculum; that is, as a knowledge project.

The question of knowledge as framed in this book is a political subject and therefore the decolonisation thesis is interrogated from the viewpoint of The Politics of Knowledge, as reflected in the subtitle of this volume.