ABSTRACT
Most dominant discourses, whether scientific, literary, media, pedagogical, or technological, need to be cleansed of biases inherited from a history that aimed to justify slavery, colonization, and contemporary geopolitical domination. Transforming narratives that perpetuate colonialities of power, knowledge, and being is a challenge, demanding a critical analysis of the terminologies, principles of reasoning, and thought patterns that shape our mindsets. Understanding how our vocabulary contributes to constructing the lenses through which we perceive the world is essential. Researchers and activists have long recognized languages as critical tools for political, cultural, and psychological liberation, serving as vehicles for distinct ontological systems and playing multifaceted roles in decolonizing knowledge. This chapter discusses the singularity of the dominant narratives shaped by the myth of the “Age of Discoveries” through the analysis of the maps used to impose worldviews. It examines the work undertaken within the framework of UNESCO's General History of Africa project as an example of the various attempts undertaken to decontaminate these dominant narratives. It also describes the methodology used to identify and replace problematic perspectives, paradigms, concepts, and terms. Highlighting the necessity to change the words that continue to cause harm, the chapter calls for collective work to imagine alternative narratives not based on paradigms of domination, exploitation, and hierarchy, and that could restore our humanity and our relationships with the rest of creation.
