Decolonising the humanities: A smash-and-grab approach

Abstract

There has yet to emerge from universities an African approach to scholarship. Flowing from this, not surprisingly, there has yet to emerge an African approach to the study of communication and media studies. Thus, African students in this field are taught using texts that draw from US, continental (European), and even Australian approaches. To be sure, scholars have tangentially inserted African texts into the curriculum; but these are texts that are made to fit into extant conceptual schema. In this chapter I argue for a smash-and-grab epistemic grounding that can break down boundaries between humanities disciplines and unleash new conceptual and methodological possibilities for the production and consumption of knowledge. It is my contention that the decolonisation of communication and media research is important, not only to the discipline itself, but also fundamental to the reimagining of the broader field of humanities and the overall rehumanisation of scholarship and the university in Africa.