An Autoethnography: A Research into my Educational Journey of Self Discovery and Coming to Know through the Lens of African Indigenous Knowledge

This is an autoethnographic study that examines the personal, professional and scholarly aspects of my learning, unlearning and relearning, with the goal to find my African Indigenous cultural roots. Beginning this study as a colonized African woman, I achieved this goal by considering critically the ongoing challenges of how colonization, through western education inflicts spiritual and mental injury upon African/Black people through imposing its alien systems; while systematically endeavouring to annihilate and extinguish any traces of Indigenous education, knowledge and collective ancestral memory. Working with a theoretical framework of African Indigenous Knowledge, I articulate some of the knowledge gained from this autoethnographic research, which was by way of undergoing the most challenging process of decolonizing the self. Through the result of this process, I found my spiritual core – my centre - within my African Indigenous cultural roots, which now grounds/intertwines my personal, professional and scholarly practice, thus creating a holistic being.M.A