Sometime ago, I wrote a paper on development and the African culture for a PhD level course at the Centre for Development Studies (CEMUS), Uppsala University. The paper tried to examine the debate on the impact of the African culture on development. It is not very easy to engage an argument that presupposes that there is an ‘African Culture’…. Anyway, I read the paper again this morning and I felt like sharing it. I have quoted the last paragraph in this post; if you would like to read the whole paper you could send me an email through the Contact page. Have a nice week.
“Compared to the rest of the world
Africa has been described as the atypical, both economically and politically. The relationship of dependence that exists between the aid donors andAfrica also fuels the discourse of docility, laziness and dependence. For instance, Joseph Hanlon (2004: 382) raises, ‘… the fundamental question that has dogged charity and aid in the West for more than a century: are the poor poor simply because they lack money, or are they poor because of their own stupidity and cupidity?’ However, as I said earlier, the way these discourses are structured almost make them immune to critical reviews. I will toe the trail of Mbembe on this point. These studies of Africa have been in relation to what is lacking in Africa, and this in itself is a product of the comparison ofAfrica to the West, using paradigms that are products of Western modernisation. As Mbembe (2001: 9) writes, this has led to the paradoxes that ‘we know nearly everything that African states, societies, and economies are not, we still know absolutely nothing about what they actually are.’ I will join my voice to that of Mbembe for the call for studies of Africa that do not pitch her against the west, and do not use western paradigms; studies that consider the realities of Africans, their experiences and interactions with globalisation and ‘westernisation’; studies that do not take Africa as a single culture but look at the nuances in the identity of Africans and their constant negotiation of a place for themselves. Until African studies are approached in this way certain formulations will keep showing that the African is ‘docile’, ‘passive’ and ‘lazy’.Works Cited
Hanlon Joseph, 2002. ‘It is possible to just give money to the poor.’ Development and Change 35 (2): 375 – 383Mbembe, Achille. 2001. Introduction: Time on the move. In: Mbembe, Achille, On the Postcolony. (
Berkeley :University ofCalifornia Press).“
Yea; but in order to offer an apology of academia here, there are some strands in anthropology, for example, which refuse these facile generalisations. I consider myself not an Africanist just for doing research in Africa, nor an Ethiopianist for doing research in Ethiopia – I am a social scientist who happens to be working there, and thus I actively search for the nuances you mention. But as soon as I say that, I run political risks, too, of being accused of denying the “common African experience” of colonialisation etc., of being a-historical, of being (in my specific case) exoticizing.
It is a fact that the generalising Western discourse motifs (which you rightly challenge) have been taken up by Africans in Africa, and it would be tricky to extricate them now by claiming that they are un-African. Even without such problematic studies, there are people who every single day pitch their life against “the west”, who have appropriate the discourse hook, line, sinker.
I’ll think about it a little more, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on how these enmeshed fields could be extricated again.
Yea; but in order to offer an apology of academia here, there are some strands in anthropology, for example, which refuse these facile generalisations. I consider myself not an Africanist just for doing research in Africa, nor an Ethiopianist for doing research in Ethiopia – I am a social scientist who happens to be working there, and thus I actively search for the nuances you mention. But as soon as I say that, I run political risks, too, of being accused of denying the “common African experience” of colonialisation etc., of being a-historical, of being (in my specific case) exoticizing.
It is a fact that the generalising Western discourse motifs (which you rightly challenge) have been taken up by Africans in Africa, and it would be tricky to extricate them now by claiming that they are un-African. Even without such problematic studies, there are people who every single day pitch their life against “the west”, who have appropriate the discourse hook, line, sinker.
I’ll think about it a little more, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on how these enmeshed fields could be extricated again.
Thanks for the comments, Felix. I too will have to think about that… maybe we’ll talk about it the next time we see? And by the way, you are an Africanist, and you do not just ‘happen to be working’ there, you CHOSE to.
Thanks for the comments, Felix. I too will have to think about that… maybe we’ll talk about it the next time we see? And by the way, you are an Africanist, and you do not just ‘happen to be working’ there, you CHOSE to.
How did I miss this? I will be back, with my comment.
How did I miss this? I will be back, with my comment.
the kind of african studies that will look at africa from paradigmns that are wholly and only afro-centric is a chimaera after all these years of a commingling of peoples, after the centuries of constant commerce and concourse between africans and their numerous others, needless to say, often to the chagrin of the black as j.p. clark would put it. but i understand what you mean: the way a debate is problematized is essential to how any of us can look at it. paradigms are very important, so everyone who makes a living from the peddling of discourse should be aware of their frames, not that they necessarily blind, although that happens more often than not, but that they are there to mark out what one wants to discuss and what one can discuss; and that one has the choice to use or discard them, or to compare and contrast them with other frames.
the kind of african studies that will look at africa from paradigmns that are wholly and only afro-centric is a chimaera after all these years of a commingling of peoples, after the centuries of constant commerce and concourse between africans and their numerous others, needless to say, often to the chagrin of the black as j.p. clark would put it. but i understand what you mean: the way a debate is problematized is essential to how any of us can look at it. paradigms are very important, so everyone who makes a living from the peddling of discourse should be aware of their frames, not that they necessarily blind, although that happens more often than not, but that they are there to mark out what one wants to discuss and what one can discuss; and that one has the choice to use or discard them, or to compare and contrast them with other frames.