The essay is a discussion on African American History. The essay therefore puts forward the definition of indigenous knowledge system along with two brief arguments by historian Emeagwali concerning Africa. There is also discussion on the opposition forces to the indigenous knowledge in the continent. The essay also highlights the concept of radicalised history or scientific knowledge as put forward by historian Lovejoy.

Indigenous Knowledge System is defined as the knowledge systems created by a particular community in preference of scientific knowledge and is particularly referred as the modern knowledge (Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013). This knowledge serves as the base for local decision making in most of the rural communities.

According to historian Emeagwali (2014), there has been existence of classy knowledge systems embedded in the social politics and local culture of ancient African civilization although Africans were not consumers of knowledge. There has been local indigenous knowledge system that resided in the cultural memories. However, the passage of time, have transformed the knowledge but did not allow the rural communities to completely abandon it. Thus, the knowledge adapted with the changing times for serving the pressing social challenges and issues. Moreover, such Indigenous knowledge system did not remain confined to the African continent but got diffused with the beliefs derived from other communities. She also put forward that though there is a need for identification of the epistemological foundations of the indigenous knowledge system along with the establishment of the methodologies for studying the Indigenous Knowledge of Africa, there has been instances when the African indigenous knowledge system was primarily focuses at the human survival and for the pursuit of causes related to community, common good and collectivism.

According to Emeagwali (2014), although decolonization of the African academy has still been a challenge but this has not acted as oppositional forces to the Indigenous knowledge of Africa. This is because people primarily belonging to the rural communities associated existence not only with the land but also with immediate surrounding and the socio physical ambience. However land represents an indigenous identity for the Africans through the association of which spirituality, politics, economics, local cultures and relations to the society gets defined. Moreover, such knowledge associated with the land guides their existence on a day to day basis. People therefore, continuously negotiate cultures, identities and spiritualities in respect to the understanding of the position of human being to their environment. The phenomena thus constitute essential dimensions of the knowledge base that forms the basis of day to day existence.

Historian Lovejoy believes that be it migration due to slavery or as a traveller, Africans had with them the knowledge of agricultural skills and techniques needed for the exploitation of the environment necessary for the development (Lovejoy, 2014). Therefore, the survival of the Africans depended upon their adaptability towards the certain ecological setting and applies the acquired knowledge so that it enhanced production and the quality of life. He further added that contributions of the Africans to technology and science are overlooked by the racialized views of the history and the demotion of the country as underdeveloped stereotype. The instability, poverty abs economic stagnation in the post colonial era has put forward an image of Africa which is of suffering, backwardness and incapability of contributing to the development.

The essay ends with a discussion on how racialized history has proved Africa as a backward community in spite of being rich in terms of industrial and economic revolution. The essay also shows how decolonization of African academy does not pose a challenge towards to the adoption of indigenous knowledge.

References:

Emeagwali, G., & Dei, G. J. S. (2014). African indigenous knowledge and the disciplines. Springer.

Lovejoy, P. (2014). African Contributions to Science, Technology and Development.

Owusu-Ansah, F. E., & Mji, G. (2013). African indigenous knowledge and research. African Journal of Disability, 2(1), 1-5.

Smith, L. T. (2013). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books Ltd..