(Individual) Responsibility in decolonising the university curriculum

Since the “#RhodesMustFall” and “#FeesMustFall” student protests of 2015 and 2016 there has been much written about decolonisation in South Africa, particularly in relation to the curriculum. However, not much has been written about individual responsibility in the process of decolonisation, which Fanon (1967) argued is a necessary condition for decolonisation. In this article I argue that the autobiographical method, currere is one form of decolonisation. I use currere to document my own journey of decolonisation. I conclude that taking individual responsibility in decolonising the university curriculum involves a lifelong affair of unlearning and relearning from which no one is exempt because even those leading the decolonial project take in coloniality on a daily basis. Such a lifelong affair will involve multiple cycles of currere’s four steps so that currere, as a form of decolonisation, becomes a spiral of multiple cycles

Decolonisation and a third possibility for the university

Decolonisation has recently captured the attention of those who inhabit South African universities, mainly sparked by student protests of 2015 and 2016. In this article writing is used as a mode of inquiry to explore what it means to decolonise the university in a contemporary world that is confronted with crises of all kinds; political, economic, environmental, health, education, and so forth. A third world university is pitted against a first world university (the neoliberal university that accumulates) and a second world university (the university that critiques), not as a new utopian idea but as a university that scavenges on the scrap material of the first and second world universities to retool them for decolonial purposes. In doing so the article changes the angle of vision on decolonising the university in South Africa and elsewhere. The author thinks with la paperson’s ideas including hir notion of scyborg, which refers to people who use their agency to retool material of the first and second world universities to garner decolonial desires. A third possibility for the university jettisons the idea of a totalizing, utopian, decolonised university. What is possible is that the university can operate like a decolonised university, without being disengaged from the first and second world universities, signifying new ways of thinking/doing research, teaching, learning and community engagement. Keywords: critique, decolonial desires, decolonization, neoliberal university, third possibility, scyborg

Viewpoint: Environmental Justice: Order-words and pass-words

Environmental justice, along with constructs such as environmental rights, has gained prominence in environmental discourse over the last three decades. These constructs have also migrated into education discourses including education policies. In South Africa environmental justice is a component of one of the key principles supporting South Africa’s recently implemented National Curriculum Statement. Despite these developments, there is still uncertainty as to what environmental justice means. Vincent (1998) analyses the term and concludes that it is a double category error since it does not rest well with either environmental theory or justice theory. I suggest that the angle of vision should shift from a focus on what environmental justice means to a focus on what it does and what it produces

Advanced radiotherapy techniques: Improving outcomes in sarcoma

Radiotherapy is an important modality in the management of the primary tumour in bone and soft tissue sarcomas. Traditionally radiotherapy for sarcomas has been delivered with a three-dimensional conformal technique (3DCRT). In extremity soft tissue sarcomas this frequently leads to high doses of radiation being given to normal soft tissues outside the target. In Ewing sarcoma arising in specific sites such as the pelvis, it is difficult to avoid significant dose from 3DCRT to sensitive normal tissue structures adjacent to the target (small bowel, rectum, bladder and reproductive organs), potentially limiting the dose that can safely be given to the target. This body of work explores the burden of late effects of 3DCRT in patients with bone and soft tissue sarcoma and how advanced radiotherapy techniques including intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and proton beam therapy (PBT), that produce more conformal dose distributions around the target, might be used to reduce the risk of late side effects while optimising target coverage. The experimental work comprises three studies examining different aspects of the research topic, culminating in the development of a prospective phase II clinical trial. The first study is a survey of late effects and functional outcomes in patients with extremity bone and soft tissue sarcoma treated with 3DCRT. Risk factors for late toxicity in this cohort are identified. The second study is a comparative planning study of 3DCRT versus volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), a rotational IMRT technique, in upper and lower extremity sarcomas. The third study is a comparative double planning study of VMAT and PBT in patients with pelvic Ewing sarcoma. How this work has directly fed into the development and opening of IMRiS, a currently recruiting prospective national phase II clinical trial of IMRT in bone and soft tissue sarcoma, is discussed

On “predatory” publishing: A reply to Maistry

I reply to an article by Murthee Maistry entitled “You f*uck one goat!” Counting the cost of predatory publishing. In his article Maistry confesses his ‘wrong-doing’ of having published articles in ‘predatory’ journals. He argues that he is alone to blame for his ‘trangressions’ because academia is necessarily a critical space that demands astuteness and constant vigilance, which he failed to uphold. Through showing remorse he hopes to restore his academic reputation, which he believes has been lost. In my reply I point out that Maistry’s loss of academic reputation is imagined rather than real. Moreover, I point out that his confession and works of those  who he cites such as Beall and well as Mouton and Valentine are based on flawed assumptions which cause then to commit a category mistake by focusing on the ‘containers’ that information is in, instead of the quality of the information itself. I point out that Maistry as well as Beall are trapped in the domain of morality which makes them blind to the importance of being an ethical researcher in the academy. Instead of focusing on issues of moral decline (Beall) and moral failings (Maistry) I suggest that in a digital age we should use the opportunities that open access (QA) publishing provide for democratising academic publishing and to make it as affordable to as possible to as many people as possible. This requires, as Willinsky and Alperin (2011) argue, treating the ethical domain as a realm of positive action where one goes out of one’s ways to help others instead of focusing on issues such as exam cheating and research fudging, in this instance ‘predatory’ publishing.   &nbsp

Viewpoint: Against Environmental Learning: Why we need a Language of Environmental Education

As witnessed at the 2004 EEASA Conference, environmental learning is emerging as a popular term in environmental education discourses in South Africa. There are those who argue that there is no need to speak about environmental education in South Africa anymore since environment is embedded in the new curriculum frameworks for General Education and Training and Further Education and Training. All that is required is the (environmental) learning of what is defined in various education policies. In this viewpoint paper I contextualise ‘environmental learning’ within the emergence of a language of learning internationally. I raise some concerns about a language of learning and argue for a language of environmental education

The anthropocene. Becoming-imperceptible of (environmental) education

Growing ecological awareness is producing a reflexive moment in the Anthropocene; a moment of critical consciousness about human agency vis-à-vis the planet, which brings perennial and new questions to the fore: the perennial existential question of how we should live; the perennial curriculum question, what knowledge is of most worth (Spencer, 1884). And new ones: is knowledge enough; what can I do? Furthermore, the Anthropocene is also a moment that invites us to ask how long should this \u27epoch\u27 be; and what comes after the Anthropocene? In other words, the Anthropocene presents opportunities for humans (in inter/intra-action with others) to speculatively construct vectors of possible futures. Speculating about such vectors means leaving modernity, the death of the human, the death of \u27nature\u27, the death of (environmental) education for the simple (and complex) reason that we cannot use the tools from modernity\u27s toolkit to fix the problems created by that toolkit. (DIPF/Orig.

Guattari’s Philosophy of Environment and its Implications for Environmental Education in (Post)Colonial Africa

In this essay I introduce Guattari’s philosophy of environment and focus in particular on his ecosophy which comprises three interlocking dimensions of self, society and nature. Guattari argues that integrated world capitalism is concerned more than anything else with the production of human subjectivity. He suggests that through its technological arm, the media, integrated world capitalism is producing human subjectivities that are domesticated, that is, passive, dull and uninspiring. The symptoms of the homogenising and normalising effects of integrated world capitalism are evident in suffering occurring in the three ecologies: environment, social and mental. Creating new ways of living (alternative to those configured by integrated world capitalism) requires the (re)singularisation of both individuals and institutions – their uniqueness should be reclaimed. Guattari points out that new ways of living are not to be achieved through macropolitical consensus but rather through micro-political dissensus – vectors of dissent open up possibilities for substantive change in serendipitous ways. Furthermore, transformative events in one of the ecologies can have similar effects in the other ecological domains. In my essay I explore some implications Guattari’s expanded idea of ecological niche has for environmental education in (post)colonial Africa. In doing so I give particular attention to the notion of sustainable development

Challenges for participatory action research and indigenous knowledge in Africa

Participatory action research represents the convergence of two intellectual and practical traditions, that of action research and participatory research. Although participatory action research is by no means uncontentious, it has become a familiar term to social research practitioners. However, in recent years critiques of Western epistemologies by sociologists of knowledge, feminists, post-colonialists and postmodern scholars present challenges for participatory action research in Africa. This article critically examines epistemologies that support and underpin participatory  action research. It particularly interrogates the dominance of Western epistemologies in supporting models of participatory action research used in Africa and elsewhere, and explores spaces for indigenous epistemologies and Western epistemologies to be performed together within participatory action research processes