Reading posthumanism and decolonisation diffractively towards (re)configuring an ontoepistemic approach to religion education

• Published in: British journal of religious education 2021-01, Vol.43 (1), p.80-90
• Main Authors: du Preez, Petro, Simmonds, Shan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Christianity; Constructivism (Learning); Curriculum Development; decolonisation; Decolonization; diffraction; Educational Change; Educational Philosophy; Epistemology; Foreign Countries; Foreign Policy; Justice; ontoepistemic; Ontology; posthumanism; Religion; Religion education; Religious Education; Social Change; Social Systems; Student Teachers; Teacher Education Programs; Teaching Methods; Transformative Learning
• ISSN: 0141-6200; 1740-7931
• DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2020.1809993

Student-teachers are exposed to different approaches to teaching Religion Education in South Africa. Amongst these have been the phenomenological-reflective-dialogical approach of Cornelia Roux and the empathetic-reflective-dialogical approach of Janet Jarvis. These different approaches made immeasurable contributions as they started to shift how Religion Education has been taught. The approaches are both informed by a social constructivist methodology, which riposte previous traditionalist approaches. This article questions whether these approaches, amidst the decolonial turn and the posthuman predicament, are still germane as they tend to separate ontology from epistemology. A diffractive reading of posthumanist theory and decolonial literature enabled us to bring texts in intra-action so as to problematise the colonial, capitalist and patriarchal character of existing approaches to Religion Education, both ontologically and epistemologically. This remains pivotal for a country like South Africa where colonial epistemicide prevails despite it being vehemently challenged. Our aim is to weave a text(ile), an ontoepstemic approach, to (re)configure Religion Education in support of the transformative potential of the decolonial project in South Africa. In our pursuit of ontoepistemic justice, we advocate for decolonising the Religion Education curriculum, understood as a verb, as (1) a means to critical empowerment and as (2) a complex encounter with entangled, embedded knowledges.