Rethinking Methodologies in Epistemology: a decolonial approach through the lens of medicinal Cape plants

Thursday, 4 June 2026, 12.50pm to 1.55pm

As Khoekhoegowab word in southern Africa and the Cape, Ausi means ‘older sister’; culturally known as the ‘respected’ one ‘with the knowledge’ in communities. Ausi holds invaluable intergenerational and deep-time knowledge of landscape, soil, plant anatomy, and of related cultural ecologies and ‘artefacts’. Ausi knowledge resiliently survived colonial displacement from land, and western extractive collection practices. How could a critical approach to the methodologies embedded in provenance through a ‘deep listening’ to ‘Ausi’ knowledge of landscape and plants help us to rethink the past and present beyond the limitations of the western knowledge-based archive?

Speaker(s): Professor June Bam (Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, AfOx Fellow)

Venue: 15 Norham Gardens - Seminar Room A - Seminar Room A 15 Norham Gardens Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 6PY United Kingdom

Department: Education (Department)