Citing sources: how to decolonise it

An important requirement for published work is to have other sources cited within it. This serves a number of purposes, the major one, from the ASWNet perspective is that citing gives the writer an opportunity to appreciate and use the work of authors that has been neglected and not recognised, in the process decolonizing knowledge. This applies for any format of writing – essays, journal articles, proposals, reports, books, book chapters, chapters, blog posts or subject/course outlines. Other writers put a major citation at the beginning of their work, the above principles apply.

Citing is done in the background, previous literature section and for philosophy, methodology and discussion sections.

One big misconception, that results in people not citing Africa literature is the view that ‘we should cite the most popular literature published outside Africa’. This is wrong because in perpetuates nonrecognition of Africa knowledge. It is because of this that Africa authors are not cited in Africa and outside.