Decolonizing feminist education: teaching African feminism at a South African university

Contemporary feminist education is riddled with inequalities that place Western feminist theories and pedagogies at the centre of teaching and learning feminism, while African knowledges and pedagogies remain marginalized. This article draws on the experience of teaching African feminism at a South African university to offer some propositions on decolonizing feminist education. It suggests that the project of decolonizing feminist education at universities entails epistemological and pedagogical transformations that legitimate indigenous ways of being, knowing and learning. Reflective in nature, it argues that there is a need for a uniquely African feminist pedagogical framework that enables African feminist teachers to bring African women’s ontologies and epistemologies into the classroom. Ultimately, the article offers indigeneity and orality as core principles in African feminist pedagogy that foster a transformative feminist education, while affirming the need for ongoing reflection and action in decolonizing feminist education.