Of Prepositions and Propositions: Sharing Experiences and Perspectives on Feminism and the Epistemology of Africanist Collaboration

Abstract

This article is a response to the growing rift between African and Africanist scholars, written by an African and an Africanist graduate student. Based on our respective experiences, we examine the moments of contention, bad faith and accusation between the two groups and the ways in which these moments are both embedded in, and constitutive of a lingering colonial parochialism based on global asymmetries and power inequalities. The two debates we specifically analyze are the heated exchange between Archie Mafeje and Sally Falk Moore over the history of Anthropology appearing in volumes 2 and 3 of the CODESRIA Bulletin as well as recent installments in the long-standing dispute over FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) research. This analysis transcends the sterile oppositions that arise from these exchanges - insider/outsider, African/Western - by bringing the exchanges together with developments in feminist scholarship as well as some recent work on collaborative knowledge and intellectual cosmopolitanism. The conclusion suggests some of the institutional and intellectual investments necessary to foster an epistemology of Africa that goes beyond the trans-Atlantic divide, while still engaging the material asymmetries that structure trans-Atlantic exchanges. (The Journal of Cultural Studies: 2001 3(1): 1-25)