African Scholars Research Articles

THE INDEPENDENTISATION OF AFRICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

This paper explores the evolution of African historiography within the broader context of global history, highlighting its significance as an academic discipline. The introduction underscores the critical role of history in understanding human agency and change, particularly in the context of Africa's colonial past, which has often been narrated through a Eurocentric lens. The methodological framework employed is comparative, examining African and non-African scholarly contributions, focusing on case studies that illustrate the diversity of perspectives in African historiography. Through a thorough analysis of pioneering figures such as Carl Christian Reindorf, alongside contemporary scholars like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Molefe Asante, the study reveals how indigenous narratives and oral histories have increasingly challenged established Eurocentric interpretations. Key findings indicate that despite the progress made in reclaiming African narratives, significant gaps remain within the historiographical tradition, primarily due to historical marginalisation. The paper further discusses the necessity of integrating digital history into African historiography, suggesting that such an approach can enhance accessibility and engagement with diverse historical narratives. This research advocates for an expanded understanding of African history as an essential component of global historiography, emphasising the importance of incorporating multiple methodologies and voices to construct a more comprehensive and nuanced historical narrative.

Systemic barriers and pathways of Black energy researchers in the United States: Perspectives from African American, African, and Caribbean scholars

Systemic barriers and pathways of Black energy researchers in the United States: Perspectives from African American, African, and Caribbean scholars

Understanding State Dysfunctionality: The Role of Political Elites in South Sudanese State-crafting and Failure

State crafting, dysfunctionality and failure is an interesting and an emerging area in political studies as well as international affairs. This area has been remotely examined by both African and Western scholars. The paper comprehensively examined state dysfunctionality in the context of state failure of South Sudan. The paper conceptualized state dysfunctionality as inability of the state to perform its functions of service delivery of public goods and particularly, security to its own citizens. While the paper surveyed the role of political elites in understanding state-crafting and failure of South Sudan, empirically, its argues that South Sudanese political elites, particularly, from Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) known today as South Sudanese People Defense Forces (SSPDF) have contributed to South Sudanese state failure than crafting. This is demonstrated through elites struggle over power, secretive ethnic politics and rewarding rebellions, corruption and resources usurp and protracted conflicts. The paper deployed primary and secondary sources in tapping the understanding of South Sudanese political elites in state-crafting and failure. It combines case study and process tracing methods to contextualize and validate causal chains and empirical casual processes. The study used a sample size of 200 respondents with persuasive and cluster sampling in understanding state dysfunctionality, the role political elites in South Sudanese state-crafting and failure. The findings indicated that political elites from Government of South Sudan and particularly, the party with majority seats in the government, SPLM and military wing, SPLA aka SSPDF have led to South Sudanese state failure. The tribal outfits such as the Jieng Council of Elders (JCE) have had a big hand in South Sudanese state failure. Finally, the paper draws conclusions that reversing South Sudanese state failure requires the political elites, the SPLM to eschew zero-sum power struggle, rent seeking rebellions, secretive ethnic politics, conflicts and corruption. This demands adherence to institutionalism and visionary leadership. The paper recommends further research to SPLM and SPLA elites to reverse state failure and rescue South Sudan from collapse.

The difference between moderate and limited communitarianism

This article uses philosophical analysis to defend the status of limited communitarianism as a standalone theory in African political philosophy. Early African scholars like Ifeanyi Menkiti argued that the community takes priority over the individual in all important respects. However, these thinkers were soon labelled radical or extreme in their treatment of the individual and were requested to moderate or restrict their articulation of the community’s role. This gave birth to the radical and moderate theories. But not before long, the moderates were also accused of supporting the tyranny of the community. They were also accused of not being fundamentally different from the radicals, giving rise to the limited version of Afrocommunitarianism. Yet, the status of this latest instalment as a standalone theory has been doubted, with critics claiming that the limited version is not different to, or is merely another well-argued variant of, moderate communitarianism. This article argues that upon critical philosophical analysis, there is good reason to conclude that Bernard Matolino’s limited communitarianism is different from (and not just a well-argued version of) Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism. The paper argues that while there are similarities between the theories, the differences which exist in the definitions of persons and community and how the relationship between the two is understood in terms of rights, duties, and primacy make moderate and limited communitarianism distinct standalone theories.

The Promise of Belatedness for Africa-Based Scholarship

ABSTRACT A regular response to scholarly submissions by Africa-based scholars to academic publications, research fellowships and funders, is that these submissions tend to be out of tune with current debates in their fields, or seemingly preoccupied with questions deemed dated in other scholarly contexts. This charge of belatedness is often framed in the diction of lack – lack of originality, lack of theoretical rigour, out of step with contemporary debates in the field of study, redundant, in a word, belated. This paper argues that this charge of belatedness is often misdiagnosed as resulting from lack of access to cutting edge scholarship from elsewhere, and therefore, addressed through temporary attempts to make these resources available. This diagnosis misrepresents deeper systemic problems in the African academy and the knowledge landscape, where academic vernaculars from the global north masquerade as normative frameworks of what quality scholarship should look like. The article proposes that rather than playing catch-up to these vernaculars-masquerading-as-norms, there is value in lingering on the specificities of African research contexts and the questions these contexts pose, as this creates scope for Africa-based scholars to produce work that turns the presumed belatedness of the questions provoked by our contexts into a generative catalyst for original scholarly interventions. I propose what I term a halafu ethic of hospitality to multiple lines of thought to demonstrate this promise of belatedness through three examples of scholarly work produced by Africa-based African scholars: Antjie Krog, Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele’s There was this Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile (2009), my book, A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder (2015) and Hugo Canham’s Riotous Deathscapes (2023). A halafu ethic, paired with intentionality about the double-addressivity of Africa-based scholars’ research, offers a modest, yet potentially ground-shifting strategy to counter the charge of belatedness and its co-optive power.

Reimagining African scholarship: a convivial approach

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Drinking from the Same Well?

Abstract This is a joint reflection by a group of Christian scholars involved with transatlantic (African/Caribbean/British) theological initiatives, tackling questions of engagement and lack thereof between contemporary African and Caribbean Christian scholars. As we have observed/experienced, African and Caribbean scholars evince ‘selective amnesia’ around theologies and lived experiences across the Atlantic despite deep historical ties and shared African indigenous cosmological roots, with persistent and diverse traumatic legacies. Building on recent experiences convening/leading various transatlantic projects and consultations in Ghana, Jamaica, and Barbados, and including perspectives from our funder, USPG, we trace past transatlantic Christian engagement (mid-18th century to present). We identify post-independence political and economic crises as likely reasons for the fading of this discourse; argue that it is within the interest of African and Caribbean Christians and wider Christian scholarly community to transcend these past and ongoing traumas; and call for mutual (re)engagement and a transatlantic theology of repair/remaking.

Dreaming Sufism in the Sokoto Caliphate: Dreams and Knowledge in the Works of Shaykh Dan Tafa

Abstract This article explores five remarkable works (currently in unpublished manuscript form) by ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Muṣṭafā (known as “Dan Tafa”) (1804–1864), a 19th-century West African Sufi scholar of the Sokoto Caliphate, to examine the ways in which dreams were (and are) theorized in the unique synthesis of Sufi, occult, philosophical/medical, theological, and exegetical disciplines that characterized discourse about dreams and dream interpretation in Muslim West Africa on the eve of colonial conquest. Concluding with a brief discussion of what these texts can tell us about Dan Tafa’s conceptions of cosmology, knowledge, and the human self, and the importance thereof for African and Islamic intellectual history, we will also consider the potential relevance of Dan Tafa’s work for the importance and onto-epistemological status of dreams in contemporary West African Sufi communities and attempt to understand why dreams have been and remain so important in these traditions.

Re-Sovereignising Africa in the Context of the New World Order Formation

This article is devoted to an examination of both the theoretical and practical aspects of the strengthening of sovereignty on the African continent. The first part of the article comprises a critical analysis of the ‘conventional’ social sciences, concluding that there is no enough literature addressing the issue of sovereignty. The theoretical part of the article also provides a matrix of conjugations of concepts, both synonymous (sovereignty and security) and antonymous to the former (hegemony and neocolonialism). The article then goes on to present the main classifications of types of sovereignty, hegemony and neocolonialism as interpreted by leading Soviet, Russian, Western and African scholars. The theoretical framework of the study is based on the works of the prominent Russian intellectual V.L. Tsymbursky, who distinguished between ‘sovereignty of fact’ and ‘sovereignty of recognition’, and also divided the political and legal nature of sovereignty. This framework is used to examine both the current situation in the Sahel and the broader African context, and the unprecedented rise in efforts to strengthen sovereignty in Africa that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with the peak of the Non-Aligned Movement’s and the UNCTAD’s activities. The author identifies the problem of sovereignty defense (ensuring comprehensive security) in the declarations of the BRICS summits in 2009–2022. Conclusions are drawn about the ‘double evolution’ of the external structures of ‘geopolitical recognition’ that took place immediately after the collapse of the USSR and in recent years, when the erosion of the Western-centric system is observed. The final part of the study draws parallels between the Russian and African approaches to the defense of sovereignty in the current world system and concludes that lessons of the previous attempt to consolidate the ‘Global South’ (1970s–1980s) should be taken into account.

Helen Verran and the Question of African Logic

Hitherto, the African intellect had been decimated by notable European scholars such as David Hume, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Hegel, Lucien Levy-Bruhl to name a few. The common denominator among these male scholars is that the African intellect is not yet developed to the extent that it can accommodate logical reasoning. Whereas notable African scholars have responded to these charges as misleading whilst exploring ways of coming up with a logic system that can mediate the theory, thought and practice peculiar to Africans yet applicable in other climes, the role of women in this journey has usually been downplayed. This research thereby seeks to fill this void by making a case for the contribution of the Australian Helen Verran who did not engage in armchair scholarship as most of her European male counterparts who deny the African the ability to reason logically, but journeyed to Nigeria to perform some experiments with the Yorùbá numerical system. She is persuaded that through the traditional Yorùbá numerical pattern, an underlying logic system is implied. Even when her conclusions are questionable on several fronts, this research concludes that her role in instilling confidence in the development of artificial logic in Africa must not go unmentioned.

Benefit Versus Risk Deliberations on Revisions, Corrections or Rejections of Manuscript Submissions: Reflections of an African Woman Scholar in Audiology

ABSTRACT The academic landscape is fraught with challenges, particularly for scholars whose identities intersect with marginalised backgrounds. This reflective paper explores the nuanced implications of revisions, corrections or rejections (RCRs) on the academic journey of a Black isiZulu-speaking African woman scholar in Audiology from South Africa. It contends that the effects of RCRs extend beyond the confines of a single manuscript, impacting the scholar’s sense of self, existence within the academic realm, and the deliberate ‘cancelling’ of one’s knowledge. Focusing on the unique challenges faced by African scholars, particularly the perceived emphasis on publishing as a measure of belonging, the paper employs a benefit-risk evaluation lens. This approach delves into the complex interaction between personal and environmental factors, shedding light on the multifaceted considerations that African scholars grapple with to establish their presence within the academic sphere. The paper outlines the well-known ‘publish or perish’ phenomenon, emphasising the hypercompetitive nature of the academic and research environment. Peer review, considered a critical component in the publication process, is explored for its role in quality assurance. However, the paper contends that the peer review process can inadvertently perpetuate inequalities, especially for scholars from underrepresented backgrounds. Thematic analysis of reviewer reports from papers I recently submitted forms the core of the paper. Seven emergent themes, such as the influence of proximity to native English speakers and the dominance of Western narratives, illustrate the challenges I faced in both local and international journals. Notably, the paper provides direct quotes exemplifying each theme, offering a very personalised perspective on the adversities encountered during the publication journey. The paper situates the field of audiology within the broader context of institutional and systemic racism, highlighting the underrepresentation of certain racial groups within the profession. It argues that this underrepresentation extends to knowledge generation and publishing, perpetuating the normalisation of Euro-American-centric norms and the exoticisation of Afrocentric standards. The reflective paper concludes by asserting that epistemological racism, intertwined with individual and institutional racism, stifles my pursuit of decolonisation and Africanisation of speech-language and hearing knowledge and practice. It contends that the peer review process, often Euro-American-centric, contributes to the silencing and exclusion of diverse knowledges, hindering local knowledge development and intellectual practices. In navigating the academic minefield, the paper calls for a re-evaluation of existing norms and practices within the peer review process to create a more inclusive and equitable academic environment for scholars with diverse backgrounds.

Plural Elohim as anyame in Psalm 82 of The Asante Twi Bible: A colonial imposition

Postcolonial theoretical examinations on the translation of the Bible in Africa have revealed the systematic process of domination and restructuring of the worldview of Africans. The colonial agenda that coloured the missiological thrust influenced the choice of words and concepts used to translate the Scriptures. By examining the word Elohim in Psalm 82, this article highlights how this development is realised in the translation of the Asante Twi Bible. For instance, in Psalm 82, the plural Elohim has been translated as anyame in the Asante Twi Bible, a translation that is not only inappropriate but alters the religious worldview of the Asante people. As a mission agenda, the term anyame was coined to redefine the religion of the Akan people as polytheism. This redefinition has had a profound and longstanding impact on the language and religious thinking of the people. At the least, this article recommends a constructive reading of Psalm 82 in the Asante Twi Bible in order to decolonise it from colonial impositions that sought to wrongly qualify the life and thought of the people. At the most, the article calls on African biblical scholars to pay more attention to the impact of colonialism in their interpretation of the Bible in order to draw attention to changes in structure of the indigenous language and thought patterns, and to look for creative ways to redeem traditions of the African people.Contribution: The study demonstrates the continuous need to decolonise the Bible in Africa in order to help recover some of Africa’s religio-cultural identity lost during the missionary drive.

State of the Field

This article considers the history and current status of African literary studies in the anglophone academy, especially in the United States. While African literary production has been valorized and validated in recent years, African literary studies lacks the recognition it deserves. In the US, African literary studies has always struggled to gain a foothold, tending to be marginalized within the marginalized. In African/Africana studies programs, literary studies can play second fiddle to political science, anthropology, history, and environmental studies. In language/literature departments, African literature courses—if taught at all—are likely to be infrequently offered electives. Outside of the big Title VI universities, the chances of finding an African literature specialist are slim—and those specialists are likely to be expected to teach a range of more general courses such as introductory surveys and upper-level courses in “rest-of-the-world”/postcolonial/Global South literature. African literary specialists have frequently expressed suspicion of the generalizing tendencies of literary theories, including postcolonial theory. Questions about the validity and applicability of postcolonial theory in the study of African literature still persist, but for grad students starting PhD programs since the mid 2000s what has dominated their experience has been the explosion not only of new primary texts and forms and modes of circulation, but the proliferation of ways of reading. Moving well beyond concerns with authenticity, tradition and modernity, language questions, questions about formalist or political approaches, contemporary scholars and their students are offering radically new kinds of readings, offering hope that the same kind of prominence enjoyed by Africa’s creative writers in recent years may yet be enjoyed by African literary scholars.

Du Bois and the wounds of the First World War

W. E. B. Du Bois occupies a singular place in classical sociology as the most prolific African American scholar of his times. This article demonstrates the profound impact the First World War had on Du Bois’s life, intellectual work and political evolution. While viewing the roots of the war through the lens of the global color-line and Europe’s imperial exploitation of Africa, he nevertheless believed it represented a possibility for the expansion of democracy for people of African descent and African Americans in particular. In the aftermath of the war, Du Bois attempted to reckon with its historical and sociological meaning by writing a book, which he ultimately never completed. Du Bois’s failure to finish what would have been one of his most important works represented the failure of the war itself and his inability to effectively marshal the tools of social science to make sense of the conflict, personally, and intellectually. The war ultimately shaped the trajectory of Du Bois’s scholarship and political radicalism in ways unlike any other sociologist in the 20th century.

Promotion of African American Women Scholars After Tenure

Promotion of African American Women Scholars After Tenure

“Abandoning her nature as a woman”: Ṭaytu Bǝṭul and the Ethiopian paths for female empowerment

ABSTRACT This essay centers on one African woman, Ṭaytu Bǝṭul (1851–1918), and argues that her path to empowerment has a significant African and Ethiopian precedent. African scholars write about how African women have obtained authority through shifting aspects of their identities through the religious, economic and political spheres. The Ethiopian precedent is seen in the lives of historical Ethiopian women like Mǝntǝwwab, Mänän, and Wällätä Petros. Using the relevant primary and secondary sources, I continue to argue that Ṭaytu used the strategies that served these women in the past, such as the prominent position of women in African religions, imperial marriages of her relatives throughout her and her husband’s growing Empire, and her central place in her husband’s inner circle to create, maintain and expand her influence culminating in her governing the nation for years after a series of strokes incapacitated her husband Mǝnilǝk II.

Cultural Conflicts In Christian Conversion: The Talensi Perspective

This paper focuses on the conflicts between the Christian faith and African traditional religion with particular reference to the Talensi of northern Ghana. It examines the religious and cultural experiences of Talensi Christian converts. Through interviews and participation of participants, the study set out to examine the phenomenon of religious conversion and Christian expression among the Talensi. African scholars believe that whenever a new religion comes into contact with African cultures there is always conflict. Christian evangelization involves the propagation of the Christian faith and the establishment of churches. The study revealed that wherever the gospel is proclaimed, it engages local cultures, and the result has always been conflict or accommodation. Critical to this encounter is the way the new faith is propagated and appropriated in the traditional society. The study concludes that since African traditional religion is part of the African ethos, an understanding of it should be considered in Christian evangelization. Ignoring the traditional beliefs, attitudes and practices of traditional people has implications for the way the Christian faith can be transmitted, accepted and appropriated in traditional societies. For Christianity to gain deep roots in traditional contexts such as the Talensi, the study recommends that proper bridges be built between the Christian faith and traditional cultures. Keywords: Culture, Gospel, Evangelization, Conversion, Syncretism, Discipleship.

Championing Inclusivity: Underrepresentation of Women in African Academic Leadership and Scholarly Journal Management

Objectives – This study seeks to investigate the exclusion of women from the management of scholarly journals across East Swahili (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Anglo-West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia) by delving into the implications of marginalization. Furthermore, the study aims to illuminate the often-overlooked experiences of black women, whose narratives are frequently overshadowed by those of black men or subsumed within the context of white women. Methods – By employing empirical evidence from African Journals Online (AJO) and institutional journal data from countries in focus, this study examines the pervasive domination of men within scholarly journal management in East Swahili and Anglo-West Africa. Results – Findings reveal a widespread dominance of men in the management of scholarly journals in the targeted countries despite the considerable presence of women in academia. Conclusion – The underrepresentation of women in academic leadership positions carries significant consequences, including a lack of diversity in decision-making processes. Such homogeneity can perpetuate existing disparities and impede progress towards gender equality within academia. Furthermore, discussions concerning gender inequality in academia often neglect the experiences of black women.

Archival F(r)ictions: A Queer Vocabulary for a Live art Pedagogy

ABSTRACT In this article, I consider the global tradition of live art as a pedagogical force that draws on queer affect and resonance. Scholars of performance studies have situated live art in the field of experimental and undisciplined art but have not given enough attention to its pedagogical potential. In southern Africa, live art has been theorised as a practice that is leaky, transgressive, and undisciplined, emphasising risk, extremity and endurance. These conditions are partly shaped by the region’s historic struggle for liberation since the twentieth century but cannot be reduced to this period alone. As an African practitioner and scholar of live art with a Namibian and South African experience and training, I draw on various experiences of performing, workshopping, curating and researching live art, offering a queer vocabulary to develop the pedagogical potential of live art. I posit that this is a vocabulary for Archival F(r)ictions, emphasising the centrality of archival work in live artistic pedagogies. These pedagogical frameworks rely on the principles of critical consciousness, embodied learning and democratic participation as put forward by the Brazilian critical pedagogue Paulo Freire. As a result, I show how gestures of hoeing and smuggling can produce joy, pleasure, and irritations as sites of queer epistemic work.

Decolonisation and South African Psychology research 30 years after democracy

On the occasion of 30 years of South African democracy, we reflect on the current state of Psychology research in South Africa. We conducted a situational analysis of all papers appearing in the South African Journal of Psychology ( SAJP) and abstracts in PsycINFO with the keyword ‘South Africa’ over the last 5 years and compared the results with a previous review that used the same methodology. Findings show an increase in papers using ‘hard’ science approaches and a decrease in systems-oriented theories. Assessment remains a major topic. While COVID-19 and climate change featured, there remains a lack of or low focus on several key psycho-social issues experienced by South Africans. People living in poorer provinces and young and older people are under-represented in knowledge production. Collaborations or comparisons with other African or South American countries have decreased. Positively, production is being spearheaded by South African scholars or people affiliated with South African institutions. Using a decolonising lens that foregrounds epistemic justice, we conclude that substantial work remains to be done for knowledge production in South African Psychology to fulfil the decolonising imperative of distributive epistemic justice.