Decolonising preservice teachers’ colonialist thoughts in higher education through defamiliarisation as a pedagogy

Abstract

The social, political, and economic inequalities embedded and reflected in all social life in South Africa continue to shape the higher education landscape of the country. Calls for the higher education curricula in South Africa to be transformed under the guide of decolonisation requires primarily a reform of the colonising spaces in which teaching in higher education takes place. Using a case study at a university of technology that explicates teaching and learning through the use of creative illustrations as a form and means of defamiliarisation, the authors show how spaces can be created to facilitate deliberative engagement and contestation regarding instances of colonisation in higher education and society. The authors conclude that defamiliarisation should be considered a possible pedagogical technique in higher education as a way of deepening students’ social, economic, political, and cultural awareness in relation to identity, language, and hierarchies of power amongst students and higher education educators.