Abstract:
The Black Archive is constitutive of works of literato such as JT Jabavu, Nontsizi Mgqwetho, the
artist Gerard Bhengu, and musicians like Busi Mhlongo. This collective resource, which should
play a crucial role in curriculating, compels us to consider two questions when rethinking
Philosophy curricula: First, pedagogically, how does the epistemic access that the Black Archive
affords our context facilitate justice? Second, and importantly, how does it help us in achieving
justice? I, here, answer these questions in three moves. First, I consider certain key propositions;
namely that decolonisation facilitates epistemic access, and that epistemic access in turn
facilitates justice (historical, epistemic, and social). Second, I demonstrate how these propositions
require the Black Archive (in South Africa) in order to be held as valid. I demonstrate this claim in
Philosophy using Dumile Feni’s African Guernica, and in Curriculum Studies, through analysing
W. W. Gqoba’s Ingxoxo Enkulu Ngemfundo. I conclude by prescriptively outlining uses for/of the
Black Archive, guarding against misappropriations that derail justice as I treat it, safeguarding this
corpus from epistemic arrogance that maintains that knowledge is valid only insofar as it is
developed by white scholars.
