Knowledge beyond the Metropole: Curriculum, Rurality and the Global South

This chapter examines the traditional questions of curriculum inquiry, ‘What, and whose, knowledge is of most worth’? from the perspective of the rural—both within, and as part of, the Global South. To do this, the chapter accounts for the social constriction of the rural as a concept, drawing on its origins in sociology and existing taxonomies of defining the rural in rural studies. This background is then used to develop a focus on questions of epistemology associated with the construction of the rural in relation to modernity and the move to the city. Drawing on ‘southern theory’ and theory from the Global South the chapter proposes the theoretical position of rural knowledges as distinct forms of knowledge. The chapter argues that such rural perspectives are not included in contemporary curriculum, with their ongoing marginalisation a form of epistemicide. The chapter uses the example of the curriculum hierarchy in Australia.