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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The Agenda of Relevance for African Studies
| Panel |
9. Setting a New Agenda for African Studies
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| Paper ID | 20 |
| Author(s) |
Falaiye, Muyiwa Adebanjo
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | The province of academic African Studies is expanding without commensurate impact on life on the continent of Africa. This paper proposes to explore new and novel ways of making academic African Studies more responsive and relevant to the existential problems of Africa. It is true that debates, arguments and theories are useful. However, the profundity of a theory can only be measured by the degree of its effectiveness and relevance to real life situations. The problems of day-to-day existence, as they concern black people have been a subject of numerous theories, debates, and conferences over the years. In many cases, Africanist conferences have partly analyzed the African condition, when what was needed was a truly novel agenda for development.
Academic African Studies seems to be infected by a pessimism leading to the construction of an implacable hostility between external and internal causes of Africa’s problems. Having erected this false dichotomy, they then tend decisively to cast their vote in favor of the internalists. Rather than create an artificial schism between the internalists and the externailsts, whose arguments can truly be depressing, collaboration with African colleagues can make a difference for the better. This collaboration is very necessary now that there is a paradigm shift among researchers in Africa, away from research for its sake towards research of a pragmatic type. The anthropological method of studying the “Other” will no longer be appropriate in this circumstance. This paper suggests effective ways of interweaving theory with praxis.
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