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Articles

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2024)

On Decolonising Feminist Studies: Makerere University in Perspective

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70060/mak-mawazo-2024-251
Submitted
March 27, 2026
Published
June 30, 2024

Abstract

How should African feminists respond to the challenge of decolonisation? This article seeks to deepen the debate on feminist studies and how it is and/or should respond to the whole impetus around decolonisation beyond buzzword politics. Without a doubt, quite several African feminists have related to this critical debate (for example, Mama, Tamale, Oyeronke, Amadiume, Yaliwe, and many others). In this case, we relate directly to the classroom experience in our context, and that is, at Makerere University. Feminist pedagogies seek to stress the productive capacity of curiosity, discomfort, critical engagement, and the refusal and resistance to imperial knowledge as necessary and an aspect of bringing about transformative learning and social justice. Using a decolonial feminist pedagogy, the classroom becomes a site not simply for sharing ideas and topics but for remarkably examining the power dynamics of the coloniality of knowledge. It becomes a spark that can light us up for critical engagement. Teaching becomes a tool for transformation, as summarised by bell hooks in “teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom” (Hooks, 1994: 6).