CfP: The Politics of Knowledge and Cognition: African Perspectives

Editors: Prof Isaac E. Ukpokolo, University of Ibadan; Dr Elvis Imafidon, SOAS University of London; Dr Peter A. Ikhane, University of Ibadan  

A flourishing area in applied epistemology today is the exploration of the intersection between epistemology and politics. Emerging from this discourse in recent years is the field of political epistemology which examines and analyses the bearing and impact of the analytic and conceptual tools and theories of epistemology on political theory, practice, and philosophy. Michael Hannon and Jeroen de Ridder’s The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology (2021), Elizabeth Edenberg and Michael Hannon’s Political Epistemology (2021), and Pietro Daniel Omodeo’s Political Epistemology: The Problem of Ideology in Science Studies (2019) are examples of key publications in this field. However, less attention has been paid to a study and discourse of the reverse relationship of the intersection of politics and epistemology: examining analyzing the bearing that political theories, philosophies, and practices in different horizons and places have on the processes and theories of knowing and cognizing. More so, the publications mentioned above do not touch at all on the African experience and perspectives of the intersection between epistemology and politics, neither in the sense in which it explores such a relationship or intersection nor in the reverse sense just mentioned.  

The Politics of Knowledge and Cognition: African Perspectives aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the impact of African political experiences both lived and historical, on knowledge and cognition processes in African places. It aims to provide thought-provoking essays on the historical, hermeneutical, phenomenological, and broadly speaking, philosophical perspectives on how power, violence, resource control, and other political factors in precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods have persistently impacted the knowing and cognizing processes in African communities. It also examines the implications of this for knowledge discovery and retrieval, and for theorizing decolonial approaches to development, episteme and existence.  

• Conceptualising the politics of knowledge and cognition 

• African epistemology 

• The politics of knowledge production  

• Epistemic injustice 

• Knowledge and decolonization 

• The politics of epistemic decolonization 

• Post-colonialism, politics, and misinformation 

• Social media and the hermeneutics of knowledge in Africa 

• Historicizing the politics of knowledge: pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial realities 

• Political institutions and epistemic responsibilities 

• African politics and virtue epistemology 

• The politics and epistemology of ignorance  

• Noocracy, gerontocracy, and epistocracy

• The epistemology of deliberative democracy 

• The politics of African feminist epistemology  

• The politics and epistemology of human rights and justice 

• The politics and epistemology of conspiracy 

• Trust and political participation 

• Knowledge and propaganda • The epistemology of protest, mass movements and populism

We are therefore inviting original and well-written chapters on these and related thematic areas: 

Notes for Contributors Submission of chapters on any of these and related areas are invited. At this stage, only abstracts or chapter proposals should be submitted. The abstract should contain the title of the proposed chapter, the author’s names and affiliation, and email address, and a brief summary of the proposed contents of the chapter no more than 250 words. The abstract should be sent to polkafrica@gmail.com" on or before November 30, 2022. Decision on acceptance/rejection of submitted abstracts will be made no later than December 30, 2022. Authors of accepted abstracts will receive further information on important deadlines. Rest assured, there will be adequate time given to develop complete chapters.