Although the issue of transformation has always been on the agenda of higher education since the transition to a democratic government in 1994, it is only since the student protests in 2015 and 2016 that the call for decolonisation of higher education in South Africa attracted much attention. The aim of this article is to reflect on the discipline of practical theology in South Africa in view of this call for decolonisation. Looking through the theoretical lens of decolonial theory, the author opts for an epistemological perspective on decolonisation. More particularly, the call for decolonisation of knowledge implies a struggle for epistemic justice. With this understanding of the call for decolonisation, the author reflects on the situation of practical theology in South Africa. The article concludes with three proposals for the decolonisation of practical theological research.
It has been a privilege to know and work with Yolanda Dreyer over many years. We have been colleagues in practical theology at neighbouring universities for about two decades, and have served jointly on committees, such as the Executive Committee for the Society of Practical Theology in South Africa and the HTS Editorial Board. We also attended many local and international conferences together. I got to know her as a very sincere person with a particular passion for those on the margins. She has been concerned with a critique of power and the established hierarchies from her early days as pastor, scholar and practical theologian. As a public practical theologian, she tackled many controversial issues and played and continues to play an important role in both the South African and the international practical theological context.
The topic of this article, namely the call for decolonisation of higher education and the possible implications of decolonising knowledge for a South African practical theology, is deliberately chosen for this
Education in South Africa has a history of discriminating theories and practices. The apartheid regime tried to force a foreign and unjust ideology onto the majority of the people of South Africa. The Soweto uprisings of 1976, a result of protests against the language policy in education, is a reminder of the devastating results on the lives of many South Africans. The democratic transition in 1994 brought some changes, but today, more than two decades later, we still see vast inequalities in educational standards, infrastructure, resources and so forth. The inequalities of the school system have many negative consequences for access to higher education (for example, a lack of access to higher education due to poor schooling and low marks). Most South Africans find it very difficult or simply impossible to pay the relatively high tuition fees at our public universities. Although the student profile at the 26 institutions of higher learning in South Africa has changed in the last two decades, it is still far from representative of the demographics of our country. The staff composition has also changed, in some institutions more than in others, but there is still an overwhelming white professoriate at our universities. Although higher education is in the process of transformation, clearly much more has to be done.
The recent student protests in South Africa do not come as a surprise against the background of the relative lack of transformation in our universities. Moreover, the student protests brought issues to the fore that were hidden in the transformation policies and neglected in practice. One of these issues is the decolonisation of knowledge.
The aim of this article is to reflect on the discipline of practical theology in South Africa in view of this call for decolonisation. As a first step, we have to explore what is meant by the ‘call for decolonisation’. I will argue, with reference to decolonial theory and the interpretation thereof by some South African scholars, that decolonisation in the context of higher education
Despite the widespread call for the decolonisation of higher education
The ‘Western knowledge system’
The important point here is that a science system developed in which Europe, and the West, took control of what counts as knowledge. The knowledge produced within this Western knowledge system is assumed to be ‘universal’ and far superior to other knowledges. The decolonial scholar Mignolo ( … the key concept of coloniality calls into question the idea that knowledge is disembodied and independent of any specific geohistorical locations. The members involved in the project argue that such belief has been created and implanted by dominant principles of knowledge that originated in Europe since the Renaissance. In order to build a universal conception of knowledge, Western epistemology (from Christian theology to secular philosophy and science) has pretended that knowledge is independent of the geohistorical (Christian Europe) and biographical conditions (Christian white men living in Christian Europe) in which it is produced. As a result, Europe became the locus of epistemic enunciation, and the rest of the world became the object to be described and studied from the European (and, later on, the United States), perspective.
Decolonial scholars agree, and this is the main point here, that this dominant Western knowledge system continues to structure our understanding of what should be regarded as scientific knowledge, and it continues to exclude, marginalise, and even dehumanise those who see the world otherwise or who have a different view of knowledge and expertise. It is this battle to get rid of the domination of the Western knowledge system and to deal with the ‘epistemic wound’ that seems to lie at the core of the student protests at universities in 2015 and 2016. These protests highlighted the students’ experiences of continuing dominance of the Western knowledge system at our South African universities.
In view of the above we conclude that decolonisation of knowledge means, on the one hand, to challenge and to unsettle this dominant Western knowledge system with its claim of universality and to expose its legacy of epistemic injustice. On the other hand, it means claiming space and legitimacy for other knowledge systems and working towards epistemic justice.
This view of decolonisation in terms of epistemology is not without ‘productive tensions’ (Harding
When we look at higher education in South Africa through this decolonial lens, it is obvious that our higher education institutions have not yet been decolonised. The education system is still to a large extent dominated by the Western knowledge system and indigenous knowledge systems are still in a marginal position. The indigenous languages have not yet taken their rightful place in institutions of higher learning, and English still dominate in the higher education landscape. Many more examples regarding curricula, pedagogies, research and publication practices could be given to confirm our observation that epistemic justice is but a distant dream.
In view of the history of practical theology in South Africa, the recent call for decolonisation of higher education could not have come as a huge surprise for most South African practical theologians. In a chapter on practical theology in South Africa for the
Practical theology, as most academic disciplines, has its origin in the European context. The first chair in practical theology was established in Vienna in 1774. Since then it has spread to other parts of Europe and later also to other parts of the world. Heitink (
Two aspects that confirm the dominance of the ‘Western knowledge system’ in practical theology can be briefly mentioned. Firstly, the growth of practical theology as an academic discipline in the previous century was, at least partly, due to the new identity of practical theology as a scientific discipline. Practical theology gained a new status in the academic context due to its adoption of the prevailing scientific methods of the social sciences (Van der Ven
Practical theology in South Africa developed in a close relationship with practical theology in European countries, such as Scotland, the Netherlands and to a lesser extent, Germany. Local developments closely followed developments in Europe, with an import of ideas through postgraduate studies of South African students at these universities and regular research visits to and from European scholars.
I would like to make two qualifying thoughts before suggesting concrete steps to be taken in our research practices. Firstly, it is important to note that the drive to decolonise practical theology is not limited to South Africa or even Africa.
Secondly, it is important to add here that practical theology does not only receive the call for decolonisation as a political call for liberation. The motivation to bring about (epistemic) justice is deeply embedded in the core teachings of the world religions and in the Christian religion. It is, therefore, not surprising to practical theologians that decolonial theory is linked to Latin American liberation theology (Harding
The next step is to consider how practical theology in South Africa could respond to the call for decolonisation of knowledge. We, practical theologians, have to ask ourselves what it means to decolonise practical theology? What can we learn from decolonial theorists regarding decolonisation?
I think that practical theologians in academic institutions could start by considering the implications of epistemic (in) justice
Practical theological research in South Africa is still very much oriented towards Europe and North America in terms of its knowledge-generating practices. The dominant epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies are those that are commonly accepted within the Western paradigm of doing research.
A first step is to see the ‘bigger picture’ by considering the whole research ecosystem. Our research endeavours form part of a large research ecosystem consisting of human capital (for example, the researchers), governance capital (for example, the research policies), physical capital (for example the equipment to do the research or research facilities), intellectual capital (such as knowledge, information and ideas) and lastly financial capital (for example, research grants and funding) (Pandey & Pattnaik
As a second step towards decolonising our practical theological research practices, I suggest that we fully embrace the humanity of all participants. Some years ago (Dreyer
Participation in the lifeworld of research participants also requires an openness to different epistemologies and ontologies and a critical reflection on the adequacy of our research methods. The research methods that we use must furthermore ‘fit’ with the epistemologies and ontologies of the research participants. Participatory action research (PAR) and narrative research methods seem to be particularly appropriate, but we also have to consider other decolonial and indigenous research methods. The work by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (
Looking through the decolonial lens, I think that the hermeneutical principle of belonging also challenges us to pay specific attention to the notion of privilege.
The third proposal is to actively and constructively seek to acknowledge the practical knowledge(s) of practitioners. Coolsaet (
Many questions remain, but it is obvious that practical theologians in South Africa have to respond to the urgent call for the decolonisation of knowledge. Much work lies ahead for all of us to bring about epistemic justice. The steps outlined above could be first, small steps towards a decolonial African practical theology and the healing of the colonial wound.
The author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article.
The reader may ask whether it is sensible for a white, Reformed and male practical theologian to engage with this topic. I am very much aware of the pitfalls and dangers of writing about decolonisation from my particular social location. I have reflected on this issue in a recent publication (Dreyer
Mbembe (
In an article in the
To the frustration of some academics. Olivier (
The theme for the 2017 annual conference of the Society for Practical Theology in South Africa was ‘Decolonising practical theology in South Africa’.
The university system as such, the existence of disciplines, and so forth are all critiqued by some as remnants of the colonial system. ‘Universities have been virtually defined as institutions for the promotion of Western civilization’, writes Mazrui (
‘At the core of my argument is the position that there is an epistemic dimension to Africa’s problems, and the struggle for epistemic justice is as fundamental to humanity as all other struggles for social justice. Epistemic justice is a corollary of global justice’ (Mungwini
We limit our discussion here to universities, because universities are at the heart of the struggle for epistemic justice. Pillay (
For further reading, see Ndlovu-Gatsheni (
I do recognise that decolonial theory, with its origin in Latin America and in Latin American liberation theology, is not a ‘home-grown’ or African theory. Many of the (South) African theorists do, however, follow these leading thinkers, and I follow suit.
‘The control of knowledge and subjectivity through education and colonizing the existing knowledges, which is the key and fundamental sphere of control that makes domination possible’ (Tlostanova & Mignolo
I use the notion of ‘Western knowledge system’ to refer to the institutionalisation and development of scientific knowledge in Europe, and later in other ‘First World’ contexts, as part of Western modernity, and its continuation in present-day scholarship. I am aware that this is a gross simplification of hundreds of years of development of science in the Western world. This formulation also glosses over the great variety of epistemological, ontological, methodological and axiological constellations within this knowledge system.
This constellation of epistemological, ontological, methodological and axiological presuppositions is presented here in the Weberian sense of an ideal type. The many nuances and differences in the day-to-day scientific practices are thus minimised or obscured in this way.
‘The idea that science and technology were among the gifts that Western imperial powers brought to their colonies was an integral part of the discourse of the “civilizing mission,” one vaunted by both proponents and critics of the methods of colonialism’ (Seth
As mentioned in the introduction, we restrict our deliberations to the decolonisation of subjectivity and knowledge. It is, however, important to keep in mind that this is just one facet of the colonial matrix of power that we referred to above, and that decolonisation requires the undoing of oppression and exploitation regarding all four elements of the colonial matrix of power.
Yang (
The problem is that practical theologians from previously colonised or ‘Southern’ contexts first must become articulate in the language and theories of the dominant (Euro-American) group before they may gain any voice or before they are taken seriously as scholars.
It is important to note here that practical theology in the northern hemisphere is also becoming less homogeneous. See for example
A thorough investigation is needed, but from my experience as editor of HTS Practical Theology and from three decades of doing practical theology in South Africa, I can testify to the immense influence of practical theological methodologies imported from northern hemisphere scholars, especially Osmer (
This generalisation does not fully recognise the variety of approaches to practical theology at the different institutions of higher learning. It is difficult to get a good overview due to the relative isolation in which theological education takes place at the different higher education institutions. Closer cooperation should be encouraged. We also have a huge variety of theological traditions (evangelical, charismatic, mainline, Pentecostal) in our context, with some of them still very much marginalised in practical theological discourses. I base my observations on the research outputs (rather than the curricula) as these are in the public domain and thus easier to access.
It is only fairly recently that decolonial and postcolonial theories started to find some resonance in practical theological scholarship.
See, for example, how Michel Andraos (
‘Universities, churches and schools have been the major sites where colonial epistemic violence has been able to masquerade as civilization, progress and development making it the most difficult site to decolonize’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Theology as a subject area and the different theological disciplines are challenged to engage with this call to decolonise our education. Melinda McGarrah Sharp (
‘Epistemic injustice gives a name to experiences that we struggle to articulate due to the injuries of hegemonic speech’ (Dübgen
See for example the work by Le Grange (
For a similar quest see Radford’s very insightful article on postcolonial feminist methodologies in practical theology. She writes: ‘This paper seeks to offer a necessary troubling of approaches to research in practical theology by exploring how attention to lived experiences of marginalization in post-colonial feminist theologies shapes theological methodologies and attends to the production of theological knowledge’ (Radford
These distinctions arise from Western philosophies of science and may thus be considered to be part of the problem. Oppong (
‘The word itself, “research” is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary’, in part because research has been a means of embedding the “underlying code” of colonialism across social life’ (Smith
These questions require a collaborative effort from all the practical theologians in South Africa (and beyond). My ideas here are just presented as a small contribution to a much larger debate that is now taking place and that will continue in the years to come.
Stocek and Mark (
We should keep Kendall’s (