Dem European Teachings in My African School”: Unpacking Coloniality and Eurocentric Hegemony in African Education Through Burna Boy’s Monsters You Made

 

 

“Dem European Teachings in My African School”: Unpacking Coloniality and Eurocentric Hegemony in African Education Through Burna Boy’s Monsters You Made Sakhile Phiri and Savo Heleta Abstract This presentation is a critical analysis of Nigerian singer Burna Boy’s Monsters You Made song and its engagement with socio-economic, political and epistemic challenges and injustices facing the African continent. We unpack intersectional legacies of colonialism, as exemplified in Burna Boy’s song, and highlight how colonial racism, white supremacy and racial capitalist exploitation are linked to the ongoing dehumanization of Africans through coloniality and neocolonialism. We also show that coloniality and ongoing Eurocentric hegemonic influences in African education and within Development Studies field globally cannot be discussed in isolation, without a critical interrogation of the failures of Africa’s post-independence elites to break away from colonial and neocolonial structures and systems and create an enabling environment for epistemic decolonization. The presentation ends with a brief discussion about the challenges and possibilities of epistemic decolonization and Africanization of education and pedagogy in Africa, and the implications of this for Development Studies.