Decolonizing Early Childhood Education: Tracing Ancestral Disruptions and Advocating for African/Black Indigenous Knowledge Reclamation

This paper explores the lived experiences of African/Black people, particularly within the context of a tri-citizen Ghanaian Nigerian, and Canadian scholar. Employing the concept of “wake work” inspired by Christina Sharpe’s notion of “sitting with” and gathering phenomena disproportionately affecting African/Black people, it utilizes archival methods to trace the ancestral disruptions, resistances, and ruptures in various spaces. Challenging Eurocentric narratives, it examines the colonization of Indigenous knowledge systems and the erasure of African spirituality. The research advocates for mandatory integration of African Indigenous education in early childhood programs, urging educators to support the heterogenous journeys of African/Black Indigenous communities to reclaim space, resist hegemonic discourses, and center African ways of knowing to foster empowerment, healing, and decolonization.