Has Anthropology a Future in Africa After Colonialism?

Abstract

Particularly in Africa, true or imagined connections between anthropology and
colonialism have often led to a deep suspicion of the fruits of anthropological
endeavour. It is appropriate to consider how far this suspicion is justified, and
more generally whether anthropology has a role to play in Africa today. It will
here be argued that anthropology has on the whole contributed to the
development of the more positive kinds of images of African in the West; and
that the contribution of this particular intellectual tradition remains important.
It is clear that the debate needs to be placed in the context of wider
discussions about the future of anthropology as a discipline. Feelings of unease
about the status of the discipline have come sometimes not from Third World
critics, or from radical commentators, but also from senior practitioners within
the anthropological establishment.l It is true that some of the problems arc
merely terminological. In its literal, etymological sense "anthropology" refers
merely to the study of man. But such a study is spanned by a large number of
academic disciplines. The notion of the anthropologist as a generalist was
common in the nineteenth century, but with greater specialisation it is now far
less significant. But even this broader conception is not totally dead, and its
revival has occasionally been advocated as a way out of some difficulties
experienced at present. 2 More commonly, however, the older general
anthropology is split between the biological and the social sciences. Thus the
more relevant question is whether there is any continued justification for social
anthropology as an independent discipline.