Curriculum Epistemicide

Curriculum: Decanonizing the Field is a fresh and innovative collection that is concerned with the totalitarian Western Eurocentric cult that has dominated the field of curriculum studies. Contributors to this volume challenge dominant and counter-dominant curriculum positions of the Western Eurocentric epistemic platform. At a time when the field laudably claims internationalization as a must, arguments presented in this volume prove that this «internationalization» is nothing more than the new Western expansionism, one that dominates all other cultures, economies and knowledges. Curriculum: Decanonizing the Field is a clarion call against curriculum epistemicides, proposing the use of Itinerant Curriculum Theory (ICT), which opens up the canon of knowledge; challenges and destroys the coloniality of power, knowledge and being; and transforms the very idea and practice of power. The volume is essential reading for anyone involved in one of the most important battles for curriculum relevance – the fact that there is no social justice without cognitive justice.

The article places the itinerant curriculum theory at the core of the struggle against the curriculum epistemicide and occidentosis. It unpacks the current contemporary global havoc as a result of the exhausted coloniality of power matrix of Modern Western Eurocentric modernity. In doing so, the piece dissects the challenges faced by a specific radical critical curriculum river framed by particular counter hegemonic approaches in the struggle against the curriculum epistemicide. It claims how counter hegemonic movements and groups, in such struggle against the epistemicide they ended up provoking a reversive epistemicide, by not pay attention to the validity and legitimacy of crucial onto-epistemological perspectives beyond Modern Western Eurocentric platform. Also, the article challenges such counter approaches to deterritorialize and delink from coloniality power matric, in order to open up their own Eurocentric canon and seek an itinerant curriculum theoretical commitment.

Around the world, curriculum – hard sciences, social sciences and the humanities – has been dominated and legitimated by prevailing Western Eurocentric Anglophone discourses and practices. Drawing from and within a complex range of epistemological perspectives from the Middle East, Africa, Southern Europe, and Latin America, this volume presents a critical analysis of what the author, influenced by the work of Sousa Santos, coins curriculum epistemicides, a form of Western imperialism used to suppress and eliminate the creation of rival, alternative knowledges in developing countries. This exertion of power denies an education that allows for diverse epistemologies, disciplines, theories, concepts, and experiences. The author outlines the struggle for social justice within the field of curriculum, as well as a basis for introducing an Itinerant Curriculum Theory, highlighting the potential of this new approach for future pedagogical and political praxis.

Necesitamos luchar por una teoría y una práctica del currículo que se aleje de los ámbitos regidos por los sistemas de significación dominantes que nos mantienen confinados en determinados marcos, pero sin descuidarlos ni disminuirlos. En una palabra, necesitamos desterritorializar la teoría curricular. Si somos capaces de hacerlo, también demostraremos que cada grieta en la plataforma dominante produce una diferenciación que amplía nuestros poderes de acción y compromiso, y nuestras emociones11 . En otras palabras, la teoría del currículo debe leerse como un "acto de llegar a ser", como algo que busca producir la diferencia y, por tanto, articular nuevos trabajos.

Towards a Just Curriculum Theory: The Epistemicide responds to a need for ‘alternative ways of thinking about alternatively’ about education and curriculum. It challenges the functionalism of both dominant and specific counter-dominant education and curriculum perspectives and in so doing suggests an Itinerant Curriculum Theory (ICT) as a new path for the field. The volume brings challenges critical educators to decolonize and to deterritorialize, providing scholars and educators a more nuanced analysis. By offering strategies to achieve a just curriculum theory, and by positioning curriculum theory to establish social and cognitive justice, this book aims to educate a more just and democratic society. With contributions from leading scholars across the field education, this volume argues that to deny the existence of any epistemological form beyond the Western mode can be a form of social fascism, which leads to an uncritical reading of history. Together, the essays offer and encourage a more deliberative, democratic engagement that seeks to contextualize and bring to life diverse epistemologies, value-sets, disciplines, theories, concepts, and experiences in education and beyond.