A Philosophic Inquiry Against the Rigidity of Eurocentric Research Scholarship Towards Afrocentric Epistemology

Abstract

To some extent, the Western tradition of conducting research has become quite more rigid and dominant in academia, and that brings unnecessary challenges to the Afrocentric epistemic inquiry.The qualitative desktop study seeks to argue against the rigidity of Western research traditions and in favour of including Afrocentric methods within African IKS research/ inquiry.The problem of language use with the Eurocentric approach to the African indigenous knowledge has compounded to the level of blocking the proper referencing of the oral epistemic conveyance of research. The study objectives included exploring the Western research methodological principles for deeper understanding, explore the nature of challenges that African researchers face when conducting IKS inquiry in Africa, a discursively exploration of the ontological differences between African and Western indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and a critically exploration of the dangers involved in keeping the Western methodological orthodox while conducting IKS research in Africa during the decolonisation era, and an analytically argue that African scholars must adopt and endorse the Afrocentric decolonial research methods suitable for African IKS inquiry. The significance lies in its critical examination and challenge of the dominant Eurocentric paradigms in research and philosophy, advocating instead for the recognition and incorporation of Afrocentric epistemology as an authentic and autonomous framework. This leads researchers into a situation whereby some of the claims to present Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) while lacking proper Afrocentric reference to the collaborators in research  studies. The current  study purposively seeks to challenge African scholarship that fails to be Afrocentric in the presentation  of research due to some Eurocentric claims of scientific orthodoxy. Ubuntu theoretical framework was adopted for the desktop qualitative study with the aim to argue for the Afrocentric reform in (IKS) research. The study concluded that the rigidity of the Western tradition of conducting research proves to be problematic as its methods contradict the Afrocentric inquiry into the unwritten literature.The major finding of the study hlights that the rigidity of Eurocentric formatting in research hinders the Afrocentric presentation of African indigenous knowledge, and that necessitates a need to revisit the traditional research presentation in African IKS studies. The study seeks to contribute significantly to the literature by suggesting new methods of presenting African IKS as well as less acknowledged epistemic methods that fall outside the Eurocentric orthodox.