Thinking Decolonisation Within Teacher Education: Curriculum as a Relational Space of Becoming

Decolonising the curriculum is an ongoing endeavour in teacher education. It prises open much needed complicated conversations around what and whose knowledge is of most worth. Universities seem to be taking this agenda all the more seriously since students stood together in revolt of Eurocentrism and the dominance of Western epistemological traditions. Commonly known under the banner of #fallism movements in 2015 and ongoing, these student protests were (and continue to be) an outcry for social justice concerns in education. These concerns are deeply ingrained in colonial matrices of power that feed on neoliberalist capitalist values. The Minister of higher education gave a directive for all universities to Africanise and decolonise which led to a plethora of task teams and curriculum transformation committees. Alas, these #fallism movements should not be seen in a vacuum. They are merely one outlet of many liberation struggles that have been witnessed across history and can thus even be regarded as a beacon for not losing hope of the dream for transforming education landscapes and its curricula. While on the other hand, the persistent student liberation struggles that date to post-World War II years (political rule by foreign nation-states) also send a series of stark messages regarding ongoing decolonisation struggles, albeit with different impetus. Evidently, decolonisation does not have a single agenda. This chapter draws on the meanings that teacher educators give to decolonisation. Research was conducted in 2021 with four curriculum studies teacher educators from a higher education institution in South Africa. Through qualitative one-on-one interviews, curriculum studies teacher educators shared their experiences of the ways in which the decolonial turn is being shaped by their institution and their own scholarship. The chapter delves deep into these teacher educators’ responses to further problematise decolonisation. A perspective for decolonising the curriculum as a relational space of becoming is put forward as an attempt to invigorate alternative possibilities for the decolonial project in teacher education in South Africa.