Toward Advancing African Scholarship through Afrocentric Leadership in Higher Education

Abstract

This chapter frames the struggles of decolonizing knowledge through the Afrocentric epistemological discourses in an African university. The chapter holds that such struggles are rooted in African scholars’ quest to transform the university into an African university underpinned by African experiences, values, and cultures. Considering the dominance of the Western knowledge systems and philosophies in the academic space, the decolonization of knowledge demands radical and decolonized leadership informed by African histories, cultures, ideas, and aspirations. The chapter argues that leadership and governance for the advancement of decolonized African university will remain incomplete unless African scholars take it upon themselves to critically engage with discourses that dislocate hegemonic systems of knowledge production and dissemination for African development. Fundamental to the process of dismantling the dominance of Western knowledge systems in academia and society at large, African scholars are urged to offer an alternative system based on African systems and traditions. For such discourses to liberate the African university from knowledge bondage imposed by the West, African scholars are tasked to provide intellectual and pragmatic leadership to benefit the development of African knowledge systems. For this chapter, the authors make use a desktop systematic review of literature on Afrocentrism and leadership in higher education.