African Knowledge Paradigms

Western knowledge paradigms have a pyramid shape: at the bottom is real experience but moving up are layers of surrogates that stand for original ideas. At the apex are ideals, or highly refined knowledge. E.g. at the top is an idea called constitutional democracy but later by layer going down we can unravel this idea in terms of judicial institutions, legislative institutions, executive institutions, under which are communities and constituencies right until we come to the level of individuals serving in the various organs of state.

The ideas of limited government, separation of powers, bill of rights making up internal formations that divide the pyramid in the inside if we were afforded the chance to view it from inside out.

However, this method of knowledge management calls for specialization and division of skills because no single individual can ever hope to access all the necessary knowledge alone. By contrast, pre-colonial African knowledge systems were concentric in the way they functioned and were organised in the following way:

At the centre of the circle are the traditions and ancestral teachings. There is horizontal free access to the knowledge. There is a link between the living and the dead much in the same sense of blueprints and intellectual knowledge being accessible to future generations. The common link between the living and the dead is the tried and tested knowledge of the ancestors.

This knowledge is mediated through song, dance, daily chores, rituals, play and mentoring by elders or senior age group members. It is not surrogate knowledge that deals with higher level concepts (being refined ideas standing for massive experiential data). It is immediate, available, concrete and practical and easily assimilated into one’s personal frame of reference.

Difficult concepts such as “where do we come from as a species” are dealt with by means of myths, songs and stories.

When a boy wakes up in the African village:

• he learns from his peers how to milk a cow,

• he learns hunting skills in the veld while herding cattle.
• he learns to feed himself, and how to fight
• he learns how to endure pain and hardship
• he learns how to fish, swim, and climb trees,
• he acquires a knowledge of medicinal plants.
• he learns the names and habits of the different animals.
• he learns about patience, responsibility and accountability and must make sure not a single cow gets lost or eaten by the wild animals

This no doubt is quite a major learning experience. In western taxonomical terms it covers a wide range of areas from the cognitive areas, affective areas and psychomotor areas of learning. This kind of knowledge is people-centred, it resides within the people themselves, if it were transferred into a pyramid structure it would need trained professionals, textbooks, teacher hours, exams, govt supervision and research.

There is a certain level of knowledge that in African due to the disruption of local culture results in disorientation and alienation of many young and old people. I certainly do not advocate for going back into tribal knowledge but the question is aren’t there certain skills, survival skills and life skills that could be better taught using the concentric African model. Issues of drug abuse, rape, unemployment, street begging, street living may be symptoms of disempowerment and given KM models that advance the social cooperative nature of knowledge would go a long way to address these social problems.

In the concentric African KM model that elders formed the inner circle but did not follow everyone else to police the system. There was much joy and pleasure and play in imparting knowledge. Songs, storytelling, drums, poems all worked within a concentric dispersal system where participants simply crossed barriers and learnt very useful knowledge and skills.

Therefore any dissonance occurring in the system, such as an individual committing a crime e.g. rape, the entire village was affected and restoring psychological balance required the culprit to sponsor the ritual cleansing of the entire village. The deterrent nature of the exercise justified the cost. Modern systems still grapple with issues of community crime, but the African model dealt decisively with such issues. When the colonialists and missionaries came into Africa, they were surprised at the level of civil order and peace. Yes, some despotic chiefs abused this system and subjected their people to abuse which they endured with stoic endurance and fatalistic tolerance which disturbed many missionaries. But retrieving the system and adapting it to the modern situation may pay huge dividends in terms of creating a crime free society.

Africans managed to create a stable system of knowledge management. It had definite spin offs in terms of creating peaceful and stable societies.

The African model poses serious questions: if you cant dance it, sing it and recite it how can it be your personal knowledge? Indeed even the mother church seem to have used the same KM model: can we speak of the early Catholic church without the icons, the liturgy, the recited prayers, and hymns? In dealing with problems of modern city life perhaps it is wise to look inside ourselves and model our knowledge systems using inexpensive, vibrant and enjoyable systems found in Africa.

The African model’s functioning resembles the Brownian molecular movement. Its success lay on two important pillars: the traditions at its centre and practical value.

Knowledge was valued for its corporate blessings and cooperative creation. Some things seemed meaningless in the African KM until one finds out the purpose behind the practices. Not pointing at a particular place e.g a mountain. These practices taught reverence, perseverance and self-control. In all higher level schooling systems which focus on leadership self-control and perseverance are still the virtues most sought after. It does not matter whether they are taught on the netball field or rugby field the end result seem not to have eluded the humble Africans.

It is a challenge today to integrate and adapt African KMS into the modern technologies. It is important to restore the spirituality of technology. Western technology is an end in itself, which is important for its distribution and development. But there is a great need to infuse social values into these technologies so that in the end we preserve our corporate identity as human beings and we ensure that they contribute towards giving mankind a more human face.