“African magic” or “African science”: Issues of technology in African higher education

Abstract

African ideas, science, technology, scholarship and worldviews have been disproportionately displaced and marginalized in relevant global dialogues. In aca demic circles, African methods of knowing have been questioned, undervalued, mocked, misconstrued, and disregarded, causing apprehension. These neg ative attitudes are internalized via the educational system, stifling agency and conditioning African learners to rely on technology from outside sources, resulting in the exteriorization of innovation and crea tivity. African inventiveness becomes “African magic” with no real desire to interrogate, explain, or grasp its basic mechanics. This article contends that technol ogy and creative imaginations exist in African socie ties. The task, however, remains the exploration and integration of African knowledge systems into higher education. The study aims to demonstrate how the interaction of two components of traditional African education—a sense of community and informal learning—could assist in the embrace, facilitation, and mainstreaming of marginalized African technol ogies. Although the paper may appear eclectic, it is intended to conscientiously push the paradigm that technology has been integral to African education. Regardless of Africa's technical challenges, salva tion does not lie in excessive external reliance but rather in investing and building on Indigenous African knowledges/practices in order to establish an African technological identity.