Epistemic Virtues of African Proverbs: Implications for Decolonizing Knowledge in Africa

This project examines Akan and Yoruba epistemic virtue proverbs and theorises how they can be harnessed to transform knowledge and achieve epistemic decolonisation in Africa. Extant literature on decolonizing knowledge in Africa has focused largely on reforming the Eurocentric curricula and pedagogies in African universities with hardly any attempt at developing the right African mindset and character traits required to foster and promote such an agenda. This problem arises from the lack of an interdisciplinary approach to the agenda of decolonising knowledge which has focused principally on curricular and pedagogical theories. This project deploys an interdisciplinary approach to the decolonisation of the curricula and pedagogies in African higher education that focuses also on non-cognitive factors. Furthermore, it deploys Akan and Yoruba intellectual virtue proverbs guided by the theory of incompleteness of being and convivial scholarship as well as theories of decoloniality to examine and conceptualize a comprehensive African-led and an all-embracing perspective to foster the right endogenous African mindset and character trait required for reforming the curricula and decolonizing knowledge in Africa.