In Pursuit of Epistemic Healing in South African Universities

Black Students' Encounters with the Structural and Spiritual Violence of Coloniality in Higher Education
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-77739-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 234 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 453 g

Reihe: Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality

This book demonstrates the epistemic challenges in the South African education system and asks readers to think critically about the university's role in a decolonial future. Wanelisa Xaba reveals how Western colonial educational models severed indigenous ways of knowing and learning across the Global South and settler colonial contexts.

Presenting narratives capturing ongoing histories of violence, this book shows how Black South African students navigate intersecting identities of race, class, gender, and spirituality within university settings. It shows how racial discrimination from fellow students, academics, and staff, coupled with discriminatory language policies, financial exclusion, and violent colonial curricula, affects Black students' wellbeing on university campuses. Xaba argues that these intersecting colonial violences mirror spiritual violence, hinder their holistic citizenship in South African universities, and result in psycho-spiritual disease.

By centring Black students' voices, this book provides crucial insights for educators, policymakers, activists, healers, and institutions committed to creating affirming academic spaces and epistemic healing. It is an insightful read for scholars researching decoloniality in higher education, as well as students of feminist studies, decolonial theory, educational justice, and critical university studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Xaba, Wanelisa

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Universitäten, Hochschulen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Kolonialismus, Imperialismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gewalt und Diskriminierung: Soziale Aspekte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Iqhayiya nebhongo lam

Prelude to Chapter One: Ukuphambana

1. Myths-education and Coloniality

Prelude to Chapter Two: A prayer for ease in the bloodline

2. Current challenges in higher education

Prelude to Chapter Three: A freedom chant

3. The decolonial difference

Prelude to Chapter Four: An academia that breathes

4. A theory that offends and interrupts

Prelude to Chapter Five: A Cultural Song

5. Black students’ experiences in basic education

Prelude to Chapter Six: Silver faucets

6. Basic Education in South Africa

Prelude to Chapter Seven: Black Saints

7. Intersectional Experiences of Black students in Higher Education

Prelude to Chapter Eight: White psychology, Black indecipherability and iThongo

8. Examining Spiritual violence and Epistemic Healing in universities

Prelude to Chapter Nine: A landscape in mourning for me

9. To Burn or not to burn the colonial university?

Über Autor(innen)

Wanelisa Xaba is a queer activist, decolonial feminist researcher and storyteller passionate about decolonial Black futures. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Over the past ten years, Dr. Xaba has combined teaching, research, and social activism to advance education justice, Black feminism, and LGBTIQ+ rights in South Africa. She has lectured in undergraduate and postgraduate studies on LGBTIQ+ rights, queer theories, African feminism, post-colonial theories, decolonial theories and education. She is a fierce advocate for her ancestors.