Reconstructing African fractured epistemologies for African development

Abstract

Africa is a continent with plenty of natural resources, but economically poor. To translate natural resources into profitable wealth that improves the quality of life and wellbeing of the people requires knowledge. Though one cannot deny that Africa, well before coming into contact with the Western world, had its indigenous knowledge system(s), one wonders what must have gone wrong. The crux of the matter seems to lie in the broken legacies of her indigenous knowledge system(s). This is because, while today’s world is moving away from resourcebased development to knowledgebased development, Africa, with its fractured epistemologies, has only been relying on its abundant natural resources, which are unfortunately being badly managed due to its poor knowledge base. To move from resourcebased development to knowledgebased development, Africa needs to redeem its knowledge system(s) from the broken pieces. This paper hypothesises that this can only be done through African epistemological reconstruction. Therefore, this paper is investigating the nature of African fractured epistemologies to understand what went wrong and how to put right the wrong that has been done to rejuvenate African knowledgebased development.