(Un) Learning and Re (Learning) Counterterrorism in Kenya: A Pilgrimage Towards Indigeneity

Abstract To a great extent, Kenya’s counterterrorism approach is criticised for being a copycat of the Western state-centric approach. This raises questions on whether the country’s approach is indeed based on African heritage or embedded in Eurocentric dispositions. Despite being framed largely by discourses of Islamophobia Kenya’s counterterrorism approach is also a product of the dominant universalistic knowledge that is not entirely suitable for the country’s counterterrorism situation. Debates have emerged on whether this scenario is attributed to the failure to place terrorism in the wider historical context or whether coloniality and Western modernity are contributing to this threat. To address these issues, this paper employs the Afrocentric decolonial approach anchored on the Ubuntu philosophy to investigate what a decolonised counterterrorism approach that reflects indigenous perspectives should entail in Kenya. Consequently, this paper attempts to shed light on history through the eyes of the subaltern by deconstructing some of the mainstream assumptions that have dominated Kenya’s counterterrorism discourse. Consequently, this paper aims to provide the platform for epistemic reconstitution by debunking the myth that Indigenous Knowledge about counterterrorism is insubstantial.