For my Global Engagement in Practice class, we each had the opportunity to pursue an individual project while in Kenya. My project focused on how Kenya’s education system confronts its colonial past, whether it creates space and fosters discussion of decolonial efforts, and how people’s concepts of cultural identity have been reconstructed since Kenya gained independence in 1963.
I am very interested in decolonization in sub-Saharan Africa. During my time at Wesleyan, I have engaged deeply with various acclaimed thinkers across the continent and their theories of decolonization. In my studies, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s ideas particularly stood out to me. He asserts that decolonization is only possible if there is a complete repudiation of Western culture and re-assimilation into our own indigenous cultures. He believes that our central reference point should be returned to our cultural identities rather than Western ideologies imposed on us. He illustrates this by arguing that literature should be written in indigenous languages rather than in colonial languages such as English and French.
While I largely agree with his claims, I have always doubted the feasibility of this goal. I worry that 68 years of British colonial rule might have done irreparable damage to our cultural identities. I worry that there isn’t a “pure” cultural identity we can return to. Instead, we exist in this liminal space with hybrid identities inextricably infused with Westernism.
Wa Thiong’o’s work is heavily influenced by his own cultural context as a Kikuyu man. Hence, I was interested in seeing how people grapple with these questions and ideas in his home country, Kenya. I hoped to find some answers through the Kenya National Commission for UNESCO. I had the chance to engage in very insightful conversations with a number of officials in this office, and I synthesized my reflections and thoughts in this presentation
