Winston Mano talks to Soderton University about Decolonising Media

CAMRI’s Winston Mano was invited to give a  talk at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University in Sweden. He talked about decolonising media and communication studies. He introduced decoloniality as key to centring epistemes from previously marginalised contexts. He underlined that this was an important step for helping to reset the epistemic boundaries of existing knowledge and practice. It is an urgent imperative for geopolitical reimagination of academic boundaries and a necessary challenge to the ways in which hegemonic geopolitical narratives are established. Using the Afrokological heuristic tool, he pushed for decolonising media and communication studies by critically identifying the incompleteness of dominant paradigms. He stressed the need for pluriversality as a key aspect of Afrokology’s connectedness to decoloniality, which includes conscious acts of reclamation and validation. Afrokology is deployed as a participatory, transdisciplinary and responsive framework underpinned by key values of conviviality and incompleteness, with emphasis on accommodating so-called “other” knowledges. Drawing on Mano and milton (2021) he put forward Afrokology as a coalescing heuristic tool to underpin work in media and communication in Africa and the global South. The seminar, attended by staff and students, was held in person in Stockholm on the 7th March 2023.

Image: Public Domain