Toward an African Critical Orientation

This essay proposes an African orientation to critical work. We begin by locating the need for postcolonial indigenous African bases for critical interventions in the idea of epistemic freedom articulated by African decolonial thinkers along with the postcolonial critique of Frankfurt School and Chicago circle critical theory. Next, we develop a basis for critical interventions in Bantu cosmology by drawing on Omedi Ochieng's groundwork thesis and applied sociolinguistics. That basis, we argue, prioritizes relatedness and community wellbeing, and is therefore broader and distinct from the narrow focus on power and domination as they relate to individual subject envisioned in liberalism. We illustrate the heuristic potential of the African critical orientation for critical intercultural and critical rhetorical work by discussing the African Medical and Research Foundation's (AMREF) Mukogodo community organizational development initiative and the #Rhodesmustfall protests of 2015–2016.