Abstract:
This paper argues that indigenous knowledge systems’ emergence via Zimbabwe as an example is more
than a case of a sudden realisation on the part of the international community (especially from Western
scholars of the former colonised people’s knowledge systems), which instead asserts that the indigenous
people themselves have, and continue to bring forth new insights and ‘new’ knowledge systems and thus
beyond just a quest of a people who want to bring their knowledge to the attention of the global
membership. Hence, it is a case of peoples who are reclaiming their identity as well as asserting their
visibility begun by reclaiming their national freedoms and curving nations out of former colonial empires
that were largely dominated by the United Kingdom, France and Portugal. The paper also notes that
indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are a movement not only against the vestiges of colonialism, but also
of neo-colonialism. Finally, the paper argues that IKS is also in some way, some form of the former
colonised getting back at the former colonial powers and their knowledge systems, and asserts that the
world today is in the grips of global warming and other calamities because of the practices of the West
that are driven by greed, and not the need for living within one’s means.
