Hausa ‘Native’ Speakers and the Racialisation of Knowledge Production

Abstract

The colonial encounter between the Hausa and the British produced multiple layers of experiences both for the coloniser and the colonised. In addition to its violent history of conquest and domination, it created a ‘text’ of learning through which ideas of ‘mixing truth with falsehood’ were presented, localised and propagated as counterweight to the dominant Muslim epistemology. Mediating and navigating these spaces require deeper understanding and the skilful weaving of divergent epistemologies of the world. In this article, the role of the ‘native speaker’ as a cultural broker is explored.