An integrated approach towards decolonising higher education A perspective from anthropology

If science (natural, social, and humanities) is to be a truly global knowledge system, scientific endeavours have to move beyond dualistic binaries of Indigenous versus Western, towards a dynamic dialogic approach that centralizes intersubjectivity, relationship, and contextualisation. Despite its historic engagement with the reproduction of Western norms and reinforcement of Western dominance, contemporary anthropology is a social science field that is specialized in dealing with a multitude of knowledge systems, and suitable to facilitate cross-cultural dialogues as well as highly critical reflections on its own knowledge constructions. Drawing on insights and practices from this discipline, we describe the inter-related strategies of 1) radical multivocality and 2) adamant reflexivity, and how they may be useful in facilitating decolonisation within higher education. We reject the replacement of one knowledge system with another and refuse subjugation of one form of knowledge to another frame of reference. Instead, we envisage science as a co-creative dialogue among a multitude of knowledges that enables a new generation of academics to use Indigenous and Western knowledges and methods in a reflexive and critical dialogic synergy, thus fostering academia as a space, where new narratives arise, meta-narratives are challenged and different narratives are related to each other.