AMAGQIRHA TO THE FRONT - A CALL TO CENTRE AFROCENTRIC KNOWLEDGE IN JOURNALISM

Journalism Associate Professor, Prof Allen Munoriyarwa has called for an Afrocentric shift in the teaching and practice of Journalism in Africa.

Munoriyarwa spoke during a two day workshop hosted by the WSU Journalism Department in collaboration with the Faculty of Education (FED) and the Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL).

According to Munoriyarwa, journalism training across the continent remains heavily shaped by Western frameworks that often determine what knowledge is considered credible.

Using amagqirha (traditional healers) as a reference point, he argued that traditional knowledge holders are often overlooked in mainstream reporting, depriving communities of information that speaks directly to their lived experiences.

“If you talk about a sangoma, the immediate thing people think about is witchcraft. But these are people who had important roles and authority in our society. Even in health reporting, we often focus on clinics and hospitals, yet many of the herbs known by sangomas treat several different diseases. But we don't write about them because we don't consider that as health reporting,” said Munoriyarwa.

To bring Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) to the forefront of teaching, the department of Journalism together with RHUL and FED sought to explore practical ways for integrating IKS into curricula.

Royal Holloway’s Professor Barbara Herring said that the workshop was a critical starting point to employ academia’s influence on centering IKS in education and society at large.

“This is something that is going to revolutionise education across Africa because it is bringing back that Afrocentric knowledge and education back to the core which will make us retain our students within our own continent to be able to address the situations and the problems that we currently have,” said Herring.

Moving forward, WSU and Royal Holloway will sign a Memorandum of Understanding which will outline the roles of all parties involved.

In the immediate future, the working group comprised of WSU and Royal Holloway will begin engaging directly with indigenous communities to ensure that the integration of IKS in curricula is informed by the very people who hold the knowledge.

“From basic education all the way to higher education, we need to know and ingrain our African knowledge, not as a side thing but as the core thing because that is what matters. We need to be relevant for local issues, regional issues and train our young people to value that,” said Herring.