Epistemic Educational Futures in an Era of Deglobalization and the Polycrisis: Reparative Futurism in an Age of Reparatory Justice, Racial Justice and Educational Justice

This conceptual paper explores what I term epistemic educational futures, utilizing a reparatory framework. It argues that this is possible because deglobalization and the polycrisis have created new geocentric spaces in which we can rethink the role of education in addressing epistemic injustice. Historically, education has served as a tool of dominant epistemes, but it is now time to redefine it to focus on eradicating coloniality. While most reparations studies from the US have advocated the material redistribution of resources to address epistemic violence caused by historical economic disadvantages, this paper calls for a realignment of education toward reparatory justice. It asserts that epistemic education futures should acknowledge histories of racism, exploitation, and epistemic violence that have disproportionately affected different social categories. Focusing on Black knowledge history as an example, the analysis presented in this article represents a forward-looking paradigm shift in educating the next generation. Building in part on Afrofuturist scholarship, the article concludes that the concept of “reparative futurism,” in which the future perpetuates the inequities of the present if not disrupted, offers significant potential for shaping how we think about epistemic educational futures.