On Postcolonial Knowledge

Knowledge and knowledge production play a significant role in the postcolonial project of de-traumatization and self-realization. However, such knowledge has often been couched within a Eurocentric epistemological framework. The postcolony is caught firmly within the orthodox which translates positivistic knowledge into the very definition of worldly progress—the idea of how a state attends to the welfare and well-being of its citizens through a development agenda. This essay engages the question: What might constitute an autonomous framework that could assist Africa and her thinkers and scholars in the development and validation of local forms of knowledge for social transformation? In this regard, I will examine the claims of Otto Neurath’s postpositivism and the dynamic pluralism of the Ifá sacred corpus of the Yorùbá, both within the framework of the epistemology of the South project. Both of these epistemological frameworks outline a pluralistic understanding of knowledge that could enable the reconfiguring of knowledge production in Africa.