ECAS 2013

The African studies are part of the research centers in European institutions where analytical and methodological renovation of the knowledge produced about Africa takes place. In this sense, a critical revision of the colonial sciences that dominated the production of knowledge about Africa since the end of the XIX century is necessary. In this paper, the Colonial School - created in 1906 in Lisbon and the first public institution to develop an area of African studies in Portugal - will be considered as a relevant experience to reflect critically upon the role of the European African studies in a multipolar world. The origin and transformations that took place within this institution will be considered briefly attempting to present the themes and elaborations developed by professors and students involved in the Portuguese African project. This historical view will enable to propose connections between the production of knowledge and the expansion of the political projects. In this way, it will reveal the possibilities for the European African studies to collaborate in an equalitarian and plural political construction for Africa.

German African studies were internationally integrated in the 1920s and 1930s. Scholars like Diedrich Westermann, Richard Thurnwald and Günther Wagner were highly visible in the international scene and well connected to their European colleagues. This changed after 1945, not least due to the complicity of German African studies with the fascist regime. In the early 1970s, a new generation of scholars started to re-internationalize and to again co-operate more strongly across disciplines, a trend that only came into full swing in the 1990s and has resulted in today's high degree of integration in international scholarly networks. The paper will use these different ways of integration to analyse what "African studies" meant in Germany at three different moments in time, describing continuities and changes in organisation, funding, writing and career paths of scholars. Its aim is to identify the radical changes the disciplines have undergone, but also continuities that, for better or worse, form elements of a distinctive perspective in German and European African studies. It should thus provide a basis for the panels' discussions on the chances and limits of European African studies in a multipolar world.

African Studies in the countries, which were under communist rule and today are known as post-communist, have developed interest in Africa in dependence on state ideological, political and economic interests. There has been a gradual shift from ideology to economy while the study of African politics seems to follow the vagaries of influence Africa exerts on the world scene. Academic research on Africa in the eastern Europe has long tradition which went largely unnoticed in western Europe. Characteristically, AEGIS does not include a single centre or association based in post-communist Europe even though in countries such as Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary Africanist research currently experiences a considerable growth. This reflects both the hegemony of Western Europe with its strong colonial and neo-colonial emphases and the weak official interest post-communist Europe shows for Africa. The paper will describe the changing accents of eastern European Africanist scholarship and discuss the question of legitimacy of marginal but non-colonial approach to African studies. In contrasting the western European African Studies with eastern European approaches it will show that the latter perspective is useful for a critical look at hitherto dominant paternalistic style of African Studies in Europe.

Philosophy in Africa is almost neglected in social sciences in Europe: it is neither recognized in the institutes of Philosophy nor of African Studies as a field of research or teaching. Even though an inter- or cross-cultural philosophical approach in philosophy became a part of academic philosophy during the last 20 years (as reflected in publications, conferences and curricular), African philosophy does not play a specific role in this process of opening. While Asian philosophical traditions and schools or the medieval Arabic philosophy is taught at many universities and colleges, Africa's philosophy traditions and trends are still largely excluded from the curricula in Philosophy, and in African Studies too. The official attitude towards philosophy and philosophers in Africa has not yet changed fundamentally in comparison to the well known Hegelian or Kantian prejudices towards the development of logic and reasoning in Africa.

So what to do with Philosophy in Africa? This paper explores, the impact of the neglect of African historical and modern philosophical thought on the academic self understanding of philosophy in Europe and shows examples of fruitful debates in African philosophy which have the potential to basically enrich the international philosophical discourse (like debates on global justice, identity, wisdom, the contextuality of thought). In doing this, the paper tries to open a way of forming new knowledge - not only about Africa, but about our (European) selves and our scientific self-understanding, which is, certainly, a challenge for philosophy as well as African Studies as academic disciplines!