Decolonising the Discourse on Resilience

Charles Amo-Agyemang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article presents a discursive critique of the Eurocentric paradigms of knowledge production that characterise much of the underlying logics in the age of neoliberal discourses on resilience, pointing out important areas not given sufficient attention. In particular, it highlights the limits of the modernist ontology of resilience, whereby extremely “vulnerable” African communities are encouraged “to become resilient” to climatic disruption and environmental catastrophe and to “bounce back” as rapidly as possible. The article moves the discussion forward, drawing from critical decolonial approaches, in alignment with Indigenous knowledges, to question and rethink meaningful alternative ontologies, ways of knowing and being, in adaptive governance. I argue that the recognition of the plurality of many worlds, rather than one world, highlighted through critical decolonial understandings of epistemic forms with Indigenous knowledges, can be counterposed to Western universality as an innovative ontology to decentre the world order in the problematic dominant development of resilience thinking.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4-30
Number of pages27
JournalInternational Journal of African Renaissance Studies
Volume16
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • Africa
  • Indigeneity
  • decolonisation
  • epistemology
  • pluriverse
  • resilience

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