The Interdisciplinary Effect in African Studies

Abstract

Africanists in the United States African Studies Association have been so relatively successful in establishing interdisciplinary communication and co-operation that Euro pean scholars have been considering setting up similar organi zations. As the latest area field to emerge in the United States, African studies have benefited from the experiences of other area programs. Also, the notion that area studies might be substitutes for the traditional university depart ments had subsided by the time that African studies centers began to proliferate. The African Studies Association is prob ably unique in its lack of research or policy-directing aspects, and its small size relative to the other professional associations has allowed Africanists to get to know each other according to particular interests in African regions or problems, rather than along disciplinary lines alone. The problem of co-ordina tion between linguists and nonlinguists was ameliorated because descriptive linguistics, the variety of most interest to African ists, has been considered to be a subfield of anthropology in most major departments—although a shortage of linguists with an African background has hampered the expansion of the teaching of African languages. The many disciplines required for studying African history may open the way for further interdisciplinary efforts.