Toward an African Critical Orientation

ABSTRACT

This essay proposes an African orientation to critical work. We begin by locating the need for postcolonial indigenous African bases for critical interventions in the idea of epistemic freedom articulated by African decolonial thinkers along with the postcolonial critique of Frankfurt School and Chicago circle critical theory. Next, we develop a basis for critical interventions in Bantu cosmology by drawing on Omedi Ochieng’s groundwork thesis and applied sociolinguistics. That basis, we argue, prioritizes relatedness and community wellbeing, and is therefore broader and distinct from the narrow focus on power and domination as they relate to individual subject envisioned in liberalism. We illustrate the heuristic potential of the African critical orientation for critical intercultural and critical rhetorical work by discussing the African Medical and Research Foundation’s (AMREF) Mukogodo community organizational development initiative and the #Rhodesmustfall protests of 2015–2016.

KEYWORDS:

• Ubuntu
• relatedness
• critical intercultural scholarship
• critical rhetorical criticism
• African knowledges
• epistemic freedom

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the journal special issue co-editors Amy Heuman and Anjana Mudambi, the journal special issue editorial assistant Ahmet Aksoy, and the reviewers for their generous and insightful feedback. Special thanks to Derek Thury in the Department of English, St. Cloud State University, and Kimanzi Muthengi, UNICEF, Lesotho.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kundai Chirindo

Kundai Chirindo is associate professor and chair of Rhetoric and Media Studies as well as Director of General Education at Lewis & Clark College. His work centers on discursive practices that contest, contribute to, and ultimately constitute ideas of Africa in American public life. Through exploring these themes, he contributes to scholarly conversations in rhetorical studies, environmental communication, African and African American Studies, and war and peace studies.

Eddah Mutua

Eddah Mutua is professor in the Judy C. Pearson Department of Communication at St. Cloud State University. Her research focuses on African communication theory, development communication, grassroots peace communication in Eastern Africa, and Intercultural/Interracial relations among East African immigrants and host communities in Central Minnesota. Her work in African communication draws from perspectives of everyday lived experiences of African people.