ABSTRACT
Where historically the humanities have been knowledge-blind, the sciences have been knower-blind. The decolonial project has a slightly different focus in natural science to that of the humanities. In the humanities it may require a wholly reimagined curriculum. In the sciences it is more likely to require the academic to pay attention to the images and models they use to illustrate concepts. At a deeper level it requires an examination of ontology – what is the impact of my way of being in the world and how I show up in the lecture theatre or laboratory. The mythical image of the objective scientist fails to distinguish between the objectivity and reproducibility of science and the inherent complexity of the scientist as a human person. Herein we argue for a model of science education which can take hold of the rigour and powerful knowledge necessary for a science curriculum coupled with attention to the particularity of the person who enters higher education and the development of the capacity to critique one’s own knowledge. It is this attention to the person of the scientist which brings attention to the hegemony of primacy of the individual to the detriment of society which subtly infuses our education system. To decolonize science is not to decouple knowledge production from the scientific method, but rather to recognize that science education is not acultural. The task of this chapter is to provide an argument for avenues of exploration to engage with the idea of decoloniality in an intellectual community whose first instinct is to claim it is irrelevant.
