Abstract
AbstractIssues of collective identity discourses and integration in Africa often face competing national and primordial identities. We explore multilayered integrative mechanisms that have become constitutive of collective African identity. We examine the nature of this identity taking a modern constructivist view of Africa's encounter with Europe. But we also address basic anthropological concerns, focusing on present and future prospects and seeking to understand how this identity is shaped by international politics or synchronized with local political units.
Highlights
IntroductionFor all the promises, post-functionalist theory fails to address key challenges to regional integration beyond the European (western) experiences
The entrenched diversity in terms of religion, language or history symbolizes the intensity of these cultural variations and ruptures any claim that a collective African identity exhibits homogenous universal coherence
The notion of a homogenous African identity is an oxymoron as no such ideal even is plausible except in terms of geographical fatality
Summary
For all the promises, post-functionalist theory fails to address key challenges to regional integration beyond the European (western) experiences It speaks in terms of multilevel political engagement, it assumes there are coherent institutional structures and political values that are functionally universal. Both the nation-state and intergovernmental body are viewed with suspicion, but as an anathema, a Haram For these reasons we turn to history, firstly, to understand how collective identity has been conceptualized overtime in Africa and secondly, to sketch the steps that gave rise to modern African identity as culturally differentiated from European experiences, according to the sociology of knowledge. We explore points of convergence (if any) and articulate a new way of thinking about African collective identity that is sensitive to context and yet speaks to the future
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