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In 1998 Prof Dickson Eyoh, now Associate Professor at Toronto, wrote in Africa Today about the
"dichotomy between African intellectuals (particularly but not exclusively those located on the continent) and their North American counterparts...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4187229.pdf?seq=1
"dichotomy between African intellectuals (particularly but not exclusively those located on the continent) and their North American counterparts...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4187229.pdf?seq=1
...who profess a shared interest in understanding the dynamics of politics and its bearing on the human predicament in Africa."
He continues in a footnote: "A topic usually reserved for private conversations, this alienation is not without public expression:
He continues in a footnote: "A topic usually reserved for private conversations, this alienation is not without public expression:
It reminded me that the call to #decolonizeAfricanStudies is as old as African Studies itself. In this regard, those who claim that they have been doing it for decades (see: https://www.african.cam.ac.uk/events2/Upcoming/cas-and-cghr-event-decolonising-african-studies-prof-christopher-clapham-university-of-cambridge) are right.
But this makes the discipline's apparent preference
But this makes the discipline's apparent preference
over the intervening years for disproportionately citing, hiring, publishing and promoting White scholars more problematic not less.
Reading Eyoh's essay today, it seems he pre-empts and rebuts some of the critiques that have been made recently of the #decolonizing agenda
Reading Eyoh's essay today, it seems he pre-empts and rebuts some of the critiques that have been made recently of the #decolonizing agenda
albeit in relation to 1990s postcolonial criticism:
"For many who are troubled by [it's] growing popularity, it is primarily the output of migrant third world intellectuals and is lodged in, and intended for consumption by, the Western academy."
p. 298
"For many who are troubled by [it's] growing popularity, it is primarily the output of migrant third world intellectuals and is lodged in, and intended for consumption by, the Western academy."
p. 298
Eyoh admits sharing 'the unease with the fascination with 'high theory" and "discursivity"' p. 300
Yet argues that its driving motive is to challenge the 'universalizing gaze of Western discourse on the "non-Western" world' p.298
And shows how his colleagues self-reflexively
Yet argues that its driving motive is to challenge the 'universalizing gaze of Western discourse on the "non-Western" world' p.298
And shows how his colleagues self-reflexively
engage with the complexity of their privileged position.
Of a recent CODESRIA collection he notes that "almost without exception, the essays effortlessly admit that African intellectuals find their social and political meanings through identification with the modernist projects
Of a recent CODESRIA collection he notes that "almost without exception, the essays effortlessly admit that African intellectuals find their social and political meanings through identification with the modernist projects
of postcolonial states."
He concludes by affirming "faith in the desirability, indeed the moral obligation, of articulating collective social visions" in the face of overwhelming adversity and despair. p. 297
22 years later this felt relevant #despair https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/siberian-arctic-experiences-record-high-temperatures-200707154226427.html
He concludes by affirming "faith in the desirability, indeed the moral obligation, of articulating collective social visions" in the face of overwhelming adversity and despair. p. 297
22 years later this felt relevant #despair https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/siberian-arctic-experiences-record-high-temperatures-200707154226427.html
He also reconstructs three distinct attitudes towards liberal democracy among African intellectuals in the 1990s: pragmatic acceptance, rejection in favour of radical popular democracy, and nativism.
I wish I'd read this during my PhD.
I wish I'd read this during my PhD.
All to say, it's a great article and shows how no debate is ever new. Go put it on your democratic theory / African Politics / Governance and Development / Politics of Knowledge Production reading lists. 
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4187229.pdf?seq=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4187229.pdf?seq=1
@pritishbehuria @balootiful @BChemouni @pandaget @SaeeduH @SimuChigudu @ASAUK_News @DecoloniseP @decolonisingLSE @CASCambridge Thanks to @deridette for the link to Alison J Ayers work which in turn led me to this article.
