This memorial lecture is inspired by the current student movements, especially the Rhodes Must Fall Movement (RMF) in South Africa and the University of Oxford, which have put the question of cognitive injustices into the global public arena.

The movements were themselves made possible by the definitive entry into ‘westernised’ universities by formerly excluded social groups who immediately became provoked by offensive iconographies, alienating institutional cultures as well as Eurocentric epistemology and curriculum.

The lecture posits that always lurking within liberation struggles has been the cognitive/epistemic question cascading from a reality of imperialism and colonialism that committed not only genocides but epistemicides, linguicides, culturecides, and alienations under the guise of spreading civilization. Therefore, the subject of cognitive justice is offered as an essential pre-requisite not only for political, economic and cultural freedoms but for global peace.

Professor Ndlovu-Gatsheni is Professor and founding Head of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute for Applied Social Policy and currently Acting Executive Director of the Change Management Unit in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office at the University of South Africa.

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