Social Science Research and the Africanist: The Need for Intellectual and Attitudinal Reconfiguration

Abstract

This paper acknowledges that states in Africa have contributed to the problems confronting social science research on the continent. It argues, however, that the causes of the problem go beyond the state. The paper undertakes an intensive exercise in introspection within the continental and external Africanist communities to explain the problems confronting social science research on the continent. The study identifies several factors as challenges facing research: intellectual distancing of the disciplines from society, the retrogressive sociopolitical atmosphere that characterizes some African universities, and the negative attitudes of individual academics. It argues further that these problems are compounded by the politics surrounding the hierarchical processes of intellectual validation and propagation at the global level. The paper concludes that without a correction of these internal and external deficiencies, it will be difficult to maintain a respectable and beneficial level of research endeavor, integrity, collaboration, and sustainability.