USA Africa Dialogue Series - Addressing the Challenge of Epistemicide and African Self-Understanding

Addressing the Challenge of Epistemicide and African Self-Understanding through a Study of Chinweizu's Ubuntology: Groundwork for the Intellectual Autonomy of the Black Race

Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi

Professor and Director, Internship and Linkages Services Unit (ils),

University of Abuja, Abuja, Nigeria

 

In this article, I explore the forms of knowledge available among contemporary African intellectuals to identify their possible outcomes. I examine Chinweizu's concerted effort in Ubuntology: Groundwork for the Intellectual Autonomy of the Black Race(2004). Through a critical review of this monograph, I suggest other ways to address the challenge of knowledge creation and consumption in Africa. I examine the work through the notion of epistemicide. First, I discuss epistemicide – a major claim that the knowledge design in Africa presently is against the intellectual well-being of the African people. I provide justifications of the claim to epistemicide. Thereafter, I provide a critical intervention to the challenge of epistemicide Chinweizu discussedin Ubuntology: Groundwork for the Intellectual Autonomy of the Black Race (2004).Subsequently, I argue for the need to go beyond epistemicide, and to pursue a system of knowledge creation (or knowledge acquisition, or knowledge application) that will liberate Africa.

 

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/15692108-12341485