Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Zimbabwe: Juxtaposing Postcolonial Theory

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.