CALL FOR PAPERS

30-01-2025

African worldview, methods and epistemologies in research and teaching: Perspectives from African languages

 Editors:

Dr Nomalungelo Ngubane (University of the Free State)

Prof Mpumelelo Ncube (University of the Free State)

Prof Berrington Ntombela (University of Limpopo)

Dr Tholani Hlongwa (University of the Free State)

Dr Choice Mpanza (University of Witwatersrand)

Dr Sipho Nkabinde (University of Zululand)

 

 

Education in South Africa has been dominated by European languages for the longest time. This has promoted and privileged a European worldview, where everything intellectual has been associated with Europe and the Western world. Consequently, native South Africans have lost the sense of their worldview, as the education system in teaching and learning have only presented the worldview of the West. Similarly, research has been conducted through methodologies that resonate with a Western worldview encapsulated in the languages of the West. What would it mean to conduct research through African languages using methodologies that resonate with an African worldview? Or how would teaching be conducted through African languages such that it promotes African worldview?

 

In the same vein, European languages recognised and promoted epistemologies of the West. The ways of knowing rooted in Africanness can be promoted through African languages. Unfortunately, in South Africa, as in any other colonised nation, local languages have been rendered inferior, to the extent that memory has been lost of how epistemologies that gravitate towards Africanness can be accessed. In South Africa in particular, the use of African languages in education was previously embroiled in Bantu Education and therefore lost its legitimacy in representing the African worldview and African epistemologies. Nonetheless, the dawn of democracy with its emphasis on the principles of multilingualism and linguistic redress has sought to reclaim the rightful place of African languages in promoting African worldview and African ways of knowing.

 

This call for book chapters, therefore, seeks contributions that will report on empirical, theoretical, or concept papers about research methodologies from African languages perspective. Furthermore, the call seeks contributions that will report on empirical, theoretical, or concept papers about the African worldview promoted in teaching and learning through African languages. Lastly, the call seeks contributions that will report on empirical, theoretical, or concept papers about African epistemologies accessed through African languages.

 

Timeline

 

Publication of the call for papers: 1 December 2024

Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 28 February 2025

Notification of accepted abstracts: 15 March 2025

Submission of full chapters: 30 June 2025

Review process: 01 July – 30 September 2025

Publication date: 30 November 2025

         

Author guidelines:

 

  • Abstracts of between 200 and 250 words should be submitted in English on or before the closing date.
  • Papers of accepted abstracts should be written in a South African official language (except English = manuscripts submitted in English will not be accepted).
  • Full papers should not exceed 7 000 words including references, tables and any graphics.
  • Papers should follow Arial 12pt, double spacing.
  • All papers should be edited and proof of editing attached when submitting a manuscript.

 

For more information, enquiries, feel free to contact one or more of the editors: