Epistemic Freedom: The Foundation of Development in Africa

Abstract

Today, it is evident that the elimination of colonial administration on Africa did not solve all her problems. It is this obvious realization that led to proposing various developmental theories to help Africa surmount her undeveloped nature. This work proposes that the solution to African development lies in curing it of its Western ideational domination or rather freedom from epistemological colonization. However, with the aid of method of analysis, this work discovered that the uncritical and automatic rejection of African ideals and the uncritical and automatic preference of the ideals of the Western culture are influences of hegemonic Western Epistemology. It is on this note that this work concludes by asserting that “any attempt at considering knowledge under the lens of Western-oriented epistemology alone, is a procrustean reductionism” that should be eschewed.