Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Epistemic Decolonization and the Flight of Academic Common Sense

Thanks Ken for bringing in Fonlon's legacy and achievements which included his work on the journal ABBIA and his insistence on publishing in Cameroon and Africa where the books would be available for African students. His "co-optation" into politics by Ahidjo is another story,  but today Fonlon remains one of Cmeroon's most admired intellectual and statesman and one has to add two of his fellow Nso Catholics,  Christian Cardinal Tumi and Archbishop Paul Verdzekov.

Elias

On 2/20/2023 1:38 PM, Harrow, Kenneth wrote:

i agree 100% with the fundamental point moses is arguing that the colonial interlude could not change or account for everything. that claim is strongest when you consider education in european languages that focus on european texts. it took an ENORMOUS fight in cameroun to get to the point where an african languages and literature dept could be created, thanks to bernard fonlon.

but much of education in africa has been marked deeply by the colonial languages, and resisted mightily if we remember the throes of struggle ngugi had to go through.

anyway the larger issue, that these refutations ignore,and which underscore moses's point, is that DESPITE the obvious truth that a vast amount of african realities, thought, customs, languages, history etc, was not destroyed or, in many cases, even affected by colonialism, that is not true of how African Studies, as a field, constitutes the knowledge about africa.

how many courses touch on "precolonial Africa"? a few weeks at most on the empires, the arts, etc. then the European entry, with slavery—far eclipsing the slave trade across the sahara or on the east coast.

if one were to say that the european slavery was much worse, had this terrible impact and that, then we start to fall into the trap of focusing on the european this and that: the voyages down the coast, the implantation of the colonies, the intervention in coastal communities and agreements to implant forts, the agreements with indigenous rulers, then the colonial thing, on and on,

all defined by a timeline that is carefully defined according to how the europeans were engaged.

moses is right completely to say this is warped view of africa that gets taught, i would bet, in 95% of intro courses on africa across the academy. that is what i glean is implied in his statement.

am i wrong? i am retired, out of touch. don't tell me about the exceptions that any of you as individuals might claim, but the vast bulk of what's taught. even in high schools, i would guess.

maybe i am wrong, but i wouldn't bet on it

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2023 2:13 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Epistemic Decolonization and the Flight of Academic Common Sense

 

Moses:

Your statement below is over stretched. No scholar has ever said it supplanted everything. The most devastating critique of the episode argument is by Peter Ekeh in his inaugural but he never said that. Both Zaria and Makarere demolished the interlude argument, but they did not say it supplanted everything.

The idea that colonialism, a short interlude, as the Ibadan School of history describes it, overwhelmed and supplanted everything that existed before is untrue and violates the logic of historical change.

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2023 9:54:23 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Epistemic Decolonization and the Flight of Academic Common Sense

 

Epistemic Decolonization and the Flight of Academic Common Sense

By Moses E. Ochonu

Everywhere I turn nowadays it's "decolonizing this, decolonizing that." The decolonial turn or fad is clouding our academic common sense, I must say.

The idea that colonialism, a short interlude, as the Ibadan School of history describes it, overwhelmed and supplanted everything that existed before is untrue and violates the logic of historical change.

I hope we don't commit the error of assuming that everything associated with colonization or colonial culture, colonial epistemology, and even colonial ontology is the sole creation of the white man and thus must be decolonized.

I hope we realize that much of what we designate under the rubric of "colonial," which we claim must be thoroughly excised from the African body politic and African ways of seeing, knowing, and doing, was actually created or co-created by Africans.

I hope we realize that the much maligned colonial library (Mudimbe) and the colonial archive have thousands of African voices and thoughts, which, though largely unacknowledged, define much of the content of these source canons.

Therefore, when we insist that everything with a trace of coloniality, everything with any tentacle in colonialism and colonization, must be banished from African epistemological and programmatic repertoires, I hope we realize the implication of that.

We'd be "decolonizing" away the work, choices, and agency of Africans, who, both in colonial and postcolonial times, chose to participate in the creation of colonial culture or to retain it as one of the components of the world they sought to create for themselves during and after colonization.

I hope that when we say we should transcend the colonial archive, we don't go to the extreme of doubly silencing the hidden African voices in the colonial archive.

P.S: This is a plea for epistemological moderation, not a denial of the imperative of epistemological decolonization where appropriate, or of the merits of decolonial theoretical approaches.

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