Panel 33: African Intellectual Archives: Cultural Productions and the Question of Theory

Despite increasing globalisation and technological developments, the flow of ideas and concepts seems to remain uni-directional across the North- South axis. This panel focuses on African intellectual archives, with keen interest in African contributions to the global knowledge economy. It takes its cue from feminist theorist Obioma Nnaemeka’s reminder that The imperial nature of theory-formation must be interrogated to allow for a democratic process that will create room for the intervention, legitimation and validation of theories formulated ‘elsewhere’…[T]heory-making should not be a unidirectional enterprise – always emanating from a specific location and applicable to every location – in effect allowing localised constructs to impose a universal validity and application (2003: 362).

The panel addresses the trajectories of diverse practises and ideas emerging from the interaction of local and global histories as well as the means by which these ideas are expressed within African contexts.

Of particular interest here is the relevance of cultural productions as important sites for critical thinking and theorisation in and on Africa. In what modes, medias and genres does Africa contribute to our conceptual understanding of itself and its relationships with the world? How can we trace the multidirectional legacies of African intellectual traditions in both African and global contexts? How can we re-think conventional methodological approaches to literary texts, from reading literary texts as ‘case studies’ to reading narrative as articulations of conceptual formulations? What would ‘transcribing’ a narrative register into a ‘theory register’ entail? What insights do these interventions offer into Africa’s place in the world?