Abstract

This article provides a discussion on the tension that exists when African scholars seek to create decolonial knowledge that may be in conflict with the colonial academy. The author offers insight into decolonial and indigenous methodologies that were integrated during their decolonial feminist examination of structural and spiritual violences of coloniality among Black South African university students. Through a critique of positivism, the author explores how methodological approaches rooted in colonial logic limit decolonial scholarship in Africa. Moreover, the author outlines new methodologies and strategies rooted in indigenous cosmologies as an alternative way to create culturally sensitive scholarship. The author argues that this spiritual centered knowledge is rooted in the epistemic traditions of the continent despite colonial erasure. The author invites readers to remember histories of knowledge making in Africa and to contemplate ritual, spiritual practices and storytelling as research tools. This paper concludes with open ended questions about African epistemological futures under the neoliberal patriarchal colonial academy.