WHO WRITES AND READS AFRICAN HISTORY AND WHY? LOCATING AFRICAN VOICES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, FROM 1960 TO THE PRESENT

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of recent past and current trends in the
production and use of African historiography, viewing the changing
dynamics and progress of this discipline as products of the politics of
knowledge production in the wider domain of African studies throughout
the late post-colonial era. On the one hand, we should not encourage
radical separatist manifestos preventing non-African historians from
writing about the continent. However, there is an urgent need to review the
stark imbalances that have resulted in a steadily decreasing participation
of African based scholars in the current production and use of historical
knowledge. Despite the growing number of institutions of higher learning,
and the increasing percentages of African-born and bred scholars that are
employed on the continent, the dependency still remains upon foreign
powerhouses to deliver definitive African historical narratives and
paradigms from outside Africa: in America, the Caribbean, Europe, and
more recently in Asia. Because of this, we continue to consume more
knowledge from outside than we can export; thereby we fail to be
influencing the world with knowledge about Africa produced from within
the continent. It remains difficult for participants from within the African
continent to control any of the politicised processes of knowledge
production; and unfortunately, there appears little that can be done to
reverse this situation at the present time