{"product_id":"epistemic-sovereignty-decolonizing-african-knowledge-systems-and-institutions-9798242783966","title":"Epistemic Sovereignty: Decolonizing African Knowledge Systems and Institutions","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Emmanuel Mwape Miyambo\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Public Policy - Cultural Policy\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEpistemic Sovereignty: Decolonizing African Knowledge Systems and Institutions\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eEpistemic Sovereignty: Decolonizing African Knowledge Systems and Institutions\u003c\/i\u003e, Mwape Miyambo delivers a groundbreaking and urgent examination of Africa's postcolonial condition, arguing that the continent's persistent challenges-from institutional dysfunction to psychological alienation-are not failures of independence, but the logical outcomes of an enduring colonial cognitive architecture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book dismantles the myth that political independence equated to true liberation. Instead, it reveals how colonialism's most devastating legacy is \u003cb\u003eepistemicide\u003c\/b\u003e: the systematic murder of African ways of knowing and their replacement with frameworks designed to serve foreign extraction. This cognitive empire, which outlives formal colonialism, is meticulously mapped through the framework of \u003cb\u003eThe Seven Walls of the Colonial Fortress\u003c\/b\u003e: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Epistemological Wall\u003c\/b\u003e, which positions Western rationalism as universal truth while dismissing African cosmologies as superstition.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Methodological Wall\u003c\/b\u003e, privileging written texts and quantitative data while devaluing oral traditions and communal knowledge.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Linguistic Wall\u003c\/b\u003e, imposing colonial languages to sever Africans from the philosophical resources embedded in their mother tongues.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Temporal Wall\u003c\/b\u003e, positioning Africa as perpetually \"behind\" and \"developing\" in a linear timeline set by the West.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Institutional Wall\u003c\/b\u003e, where universities, journals, and funding bodies reproduce colonial knowledge hierarchies.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Economic Wall\u003c\/b\u003e, tethering knowledge's value to capitalist utility and extraction, while ignoring communal and ecological wisdom.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Psychological Wall\u003c\/b\u003e, resulting in the internalized colonized mind-marked by inferiority, alienation, and a desperate craving for colonial validation.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoving from forensic diagnosis to practical reconstruction, the book charts actionable pathways toward \u003cb\u003eepistemic sovereignty\u003c\/b\u003e-the recovered capacity of African societies to produce authoritative knowledge about themselves using their own criteria of truth and validity. Grounded in the foundational work of African intellectuals like Cheikh Anta Diop, Frantz Fanon, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and contemporary decolonial scholars, it documents real-world initiatives across the continent that are already dismantling these walls.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEpistemic Sovereignty\u003c\/i\u003e is a vital resource for students, scholars, activists, educators, policymakers, and anyone committed to the unfinished project of liberation. It is a call to move beyond the \"colonial library\" and build a future where African minds are free to imagine and create on their own terms-proving that Africa was never the problem, but always the solution interrupted.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Independently Published","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47595179704471,"sku":"9798242783966","price":2414.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9798242783966.webp?v=1774988726","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/epistemic-sovereignty-decolonizing-african-knowledge-systems-and-institutions-9798242783966","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}