Editorial : Doing southern theory : towards alternative knowledges and knowledge practices in/for education

Abstract

Building on Connell’s Southern Theory and others’ decolonizing knowledge projects, this special issue aims to explore the implications of these alternative knowledge projects for education scholarship. Education, as one of the ‘applied’ or ‘subordinate’ disciplines in social science and humanities, is always attentive to the intellectual trends in more established disciplines such as philosophy, sociology and anthropology. And yet the emerging debate over Southern Theory in these disciplines, generated partly by Connell’s (2007) work, has resulted in little impact so far on educational scholarship, although there are some exceptions (Hickling-Hudson 2009; Singh 2010, 2015; Zhang, Chan & Kenway. 2015). Doing Southern Theory contributes to reversing these trends by positioning Southern Theory at the centre of theoretical and methodological debates in education scholarship. More importantly it suggests positioning education at the forefront of Southern Theory work by acknowledging that Southern Theory is essentially a pedagogic project.