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Break out of the Prison House of Hierarchy!
Mukoma Wa Ngugi
Through astrophysics, I can see that as far as the universe goes there is no single center or rather the center is everywhere. I can grasp the uncertainty principle where measurements for things that are both waves and particles can never be exact. It should not be easier for me to extract knowledge from physics than in my own field. These two principles are at the heart of Ngugi’s Globalectics, where the challenge is for us to break out of the “prison houses” of language, the ivory tower, and imaginary centers. In this way, globalectics offers us one way to organize ‘knowledges’ coming from the global South. For Ngugi, “poor theory and its practice imply maximizing the possibilities inherent in the minimum.” If we are going to be seen as legitimate producers of knowledge worthy of public respect, debate and ultimately defense, we need not only poor theory, but also humble theorists who are willing to break in and out of the ivory tower and into the world. Works Cited Ngũgĩ, Wa Thiongʼo. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York: Columbia UP, 2012. Print. Sadāwī, Nawāl, and Sharīf Ḥatātah. Woman at Point Zero. London: Zed, 1983. Print. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 |
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Essays in this Forum
Break out of the Prison House of Hierarchy!
by Mukoma Wa Ngugi A Globalectical Imagination by Ngugi wa Thiong'o World Literature and the Postcolonial: Ngugi's Globalectics and Glissant's Poetics by Duncan McEachern Yoon “You Are the Prisoner, the Discoverer, the Founder, the Liberator”: Contextualizing Decolonial Paths of Afro-Hispanic Literature in Latin America, Equatorial Guinea and Spain by Elisa Rizo Globalectics Beyond Postcoloniality by Carole Boyce Davies |