Contested cultures of knowledge - identifying challenges to include experiential knowledge into the academy

Abstract

This article focuses on a case study of attempts at one university in South Africa to widen access to adult learners in a post-apartheid policy of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).It outlines the context of the policy, the ways in which RPL is implemented at one university and the epistemological challenges experienced both by staff and RPL students to argue for the inclusion of diverse categories of knowledge into the academy. The article considers how postcolonial theories of knowledge can contribute to this debate, my own involvement in and qualitative data from a study led by Cooper and Harris (2013) to argue for the continued value of experiential, work, community and political knowledge as important categories of knowledge in themselves.