Citing sources: how to decolonise it

2 September 20232 September 2023 aswnetadmin

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.

*Ngugi WaThiongo, one of the authors to cite*

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.

The sad thing is, as an author, if you do not cite other works from Africa, it means your work won’t be cited too. At the end, Africa knowledge remains lowly cited, and non-Africa literature increase their citation rates. The loss is to Africa. The solution is simple, cite majority literature from Africa all the time. At ASWNet, we recommend no less than 80%.
ASWNet, 2023