ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and analyzes contemporary contestations around who is a legitimate knower and what constitutes a legitimate gaze in the humanities in post-colonial and ‘Southern’ contexts. Data from students during the protests of 2015–2016 and subsequent proposals and counter-proposals for ‘decolonizing the curriculum’ at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, are analyzed using concepts from LCT to explore questions of legitimacy. Specifically, LCT is used to reveal the different ‘gazes’ and ‘lenses’ that underpin claims to legitimacy by diverse kinds of knowers as they struggle over the nature of the humanities. Data is drawn from black student activist voices from the site of teaching and learning and contesting academic voices from the arena of curriculum policy and design. Analysis reveals that contestations around the meaning of a ‘decolonized curriculum’ are based on conflicting assumptions about what dispositions should be valued. In conclusion, I reflect on how ‘gazes’ take on new and politically charged meanings in a post-colonial context, especially in the humanities, where tensions rooted in social injustice remain racialized and unresolved.
