5. Why decolonising “knowledge” matters: Deliberations for educators on that made fragile

This chapter grapples with the question of why decolonising ‘knowledge’ matters for teaching and learning. It shares a selection of important considerations at this point in time. It draws inter-textually to deliberate about (a) why ‘knowledge’ (singular) should be decolonised within the modern western-oriented university; (b) why the decolonisation of knowledges matter, with consideration of their relation to the formations of the self, social and ecological in education; and (c) what the potential act(s) of decolonising knowledges through education holds for engendering critical and generative roles which educators should occupy. As a way into this deliberation, the chapter begins with observations of the phenomenon of what seems like either educators’ avoidance, ignorance or passing-the-buck on the question of the transformation of knowledges in the university in post-colonial contexts.