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dc.contributor.authorWoldeyes, Yirga Gelaw
dc.contributor.authorBelachew, Tekletsadik
dc.date.accessioned2021-09-23T01:47:16Z
dc.date.available2021-09-23T01:47:16Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.identifier.citationWoldeyes, Y. and Belachew, T. 2021. Decolonising the environment through African epistemologies. Descolonización ambiental mediante epistemologías africanas. Gestión y Ambiente. 24 (1): pp. 61-81.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/85620
dc.identifier.doi10.15446/ga.v24nsupl1.91881
dc.description.abstract

This paper examines African epistemologies of the environment as a place-based perspective that regards nature as having its inherent value, personhood, and agency. It presents the African way of relating with or living in the environment as a way of becoming one with nature beyond the discourse of the Anthropocene and environmental change. In particular, we will take African epistemological perspectives from Southern and Eastern Africa, the notions of Ubuntu and Tabot, to reflect on how the environment is traditionally perceived as sacred and part of a living community. The paper also considers how African indigenous ways of knowing and becoming one with nature have been supplanted through epistemic violence, the imposition of western views of the environment over African worldviews through systems and institutions that exclude or exploit local knowledges. Using Ethiopia as a case study, the paper demonstrates how epistemic violence is enacted by excluding indigenous knowledges of the environment from education and disseminating Eurocentric views of the environment. It shall show how the collecting and hording of Ethiopian manuscripts in western institutions has contributed to this loss of indigenous environmental knowledge. Finally, we will examine the importance of African perspectives to decolonise our ways of knowing and relating with the environment, and offer critical insights on how African epistemologies could be used to build a future that is decolonised and sustainable.

dc.languageSpanish and English
dc.publisherUniversidad Nacional de Colombia
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
dc.titleDecolonising the environment through African epistemologies. Descolonización ambiental mediante epistemologías africanas
dc.typeJournal Article
dcterms.source.issn0124-177X
dcterms.source.titleGestión y Ambiente
dc.date.updated2021-09-23T01:47:15Z
curtin.departmentSchool of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry
curtin.accessStatusOpen access
curtin.facultyFaculty of Humanities
curtin.contributor.orcidWoldeyes, Yirga Gelaw [0000-0003-3366-3129]
curtin.contributor.orcidWoldeyes, Yirga Gelaw [0000-0003-3366-3129]
curtin.contributor.scopusauthoridWoldeyes, Yirga Gelaw [56560196600]
curtin.contributor.scopusauthoridWoldeyes, Yirga Gelaw [56560196600]


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