I have studied part time alongside full-time work for nine of the last ten years. I’ve read avidly (and sometimes a little more reluctantly) for a decade, and never been captivated so entirely as I was when I stumbled across the theory of cognitive justice. The theory was posed by Professor Shiv Visvanathan; a scholar contesting the hegemonic enforcement of Western knowledges upon traditional Indian knowledge systems.
Visvanathan continues to argue against the insidious undercurrents of colonialism by calling for the recognition of a plurality of knowledges, or a ‘”democratisation of knowledge systems”. The theory has resonated with scholars across numerous fields of study and has already been brought into educational research by Professor Catherine Odora Hoppers.
The ideas and the ideal that they proposed stuck with me for weeks. They would sit in the periphery of my attention for days, floating into view but never into focus, until micro-moments of disconnect between colleagues and learners gradually pulled the pixels together. Visvanathan tells us that knowledge systems do not exist as abstractions of peoples’ identities. Knowledge systems inform lives, life goals, livelihood, lifestyle and life chances.
I had started to recognise that these were often not in alignment between teachers and students, and, more importantly, there was an unspoken assumption of a “correct” knowledge system. The unspoken then, is that any alternative is “incorrect”.
