Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:51:28.652Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

26 - The Social Sciences in Africa

from PART III - THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Owen Sichone
Edited by
Theodore M. Porter  and
Dorothy Ross
Theodore M. Porter
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Dorothy Ross
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
Get access

Summary

Since European explorers first began studying Africa, the continent has served as a testing ground for theories central to the development of science generally and of social theory in particular. Research conducted by sociocultural anthropologists, economists, and political scientists in Africa has generated concepts and theories of great importance to the disciplines. The impact of the social sciences on Africa has been equally far-reaching. Policy makers and development planners have tried to employ the social sciences as a means of bringing about social transformation since the colonial days. The development of the social science disciplines by Africans – the subject of this chapter – has been crucially shaped by all these efforts.

Writers on the social sciences in Africa can be divided into two polemical camps. The first is made up of Afrocentric scholars who are preoccupied with correcting unequal power relations in knowledge production. They try to show that there are other ways of knowing than those taught by conventional science. They also try to expose the exclusion of African knowledge systems from university curricula and the history of science, as well as the marginalization of African scholarship in the global academic community. The other side downplays the significance of these power relations and advocates a universal system of scientific knowledge production, one that includes an African role. Lacking a common language, the two camps effectively talk at cross purposes and are engaged in polemical nondialogue. Rather than taking a position in this debate, I will discuss features of the social sciences in Africa that both sides must take into account.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Science , pp. 466 - 481
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ade Ajayi, Jacob F., Goma, Lameck H.K., and Johnson, G. Ampah, The African Experience with Higher Education (London: James Currey; Athens: Ohio State University, 1996)Google Scholar
Adedeji, Adebayo ed., Africa within the World: Beyond Dispossession and Dependence (London: Zed Books; Ijebu-Ode: ACDESS, 1993).Google Scholar
Amin, Samir “Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 10 (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asante, MolefiThe Africentric Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Ayandele, E. A. “Africa since Independence,” in The Making of Modern Africa, 1800–1960, vol. 2: The Late 19th Century to the Present Day, ed. Omer-Cooper, John D., Ayandele, Emmanuel A., Gavin, R.G., and Afigbo, Adiele E. (London: Longman, 1971).Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H., Mudimbe, Valentin Y., and O’Barr, Jean, eds., Africa and the Disciplines: The Contribution of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Chege, Michael and Hyden, Goran, “Research and Knowledge: Social Sciences,” in Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara, ed. Middleton, John (New York: Scribner’s, 1997).Google Scholar
Devisch, Rene and Crossman, Peter, Consultants’ Report on Endoginisation and African Universities: A Survey of Endoginisation Initiatives at Six African Universities (Leuven: Africa Research Centre, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 1998).Google Scholar
Hammond-Tooke, William DavidImperfect Interpreters: South Africa’s Anthropologists, 1920–1990 (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
Jinadu, L. AdeleThe Social Sciences and Development in Africa: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe (Stockholm: Swedish Agency for Research Co-operation with Developing Countries, 1985).Google Scholar
Kenyatta, JomoFacing Mount Kenya (London: Heinemann, 1979).Google Scholar
Lewis, W. Arthur “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 22 (1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazrui, Ali A. and Ajayi, J. F. Ade, “Trends in Philosophy and Science in Africa,” in Africa Since 1935: The UNESCO General History of Africa VIII, ed. Mazrui, Ali A. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Mazrui, Ali A.The Africans: A Triple Heritage (New York: Little Brown; London: BBC Publications, 1986)Google Scholar
Mbeki, Thabo “The African Renaissance: South Africa and the World,” speech at the United Nations University, 9 April 1998 (http://www.unu.edu/Hq/unupress/mbeki.html).Google Scholar
Mkandawire, Thandika “The Social Sciences in Africa: Breaking Local Barriers and Negotiating International Presence,” African Studies Review, 40 (1997)Google Scholar
Mudimbe, Valentin Y.The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Museveni, Yoweri “Fanon’s Theory on Violence: Its Verification in Liberated Mozambique,” in Essays on the Liberation of Southern Africa, ed. Shamuyarira, Nathan (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1971)Google Scholar
Nabudere, D. W. “The One Party State in Africa and Its Assumed Philosophical Roots,” in Democracy and the One Party State in Africa, ed. Meyns, Peter and Nabudere, Dani Wadada (Hamburg: Institut für Afrika-Kunde, 1989).Google Scholar
Ornäs, Anders Hjort af and Vylder, Stefan, Social Science in Africa: The Role of CODESRIA in Pan-African Cooperation (Stockholm: SAREC, 1991).Google Scholar
Roberts, Andrew D. “African Cross-currents,” in The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 7: From 1905–1940, ed. Roberts, Andrew D. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Roberts, AndrewA History of the Bemba: Political Growth and Change in North-eastern Zambia before 1900 (London: Longman, 1973).Google Scholar
Rodney, WalterHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1972).Google Scholar
Tandon, Yash ed., University of Dar es Salaam Debate on Class, State and Imperialism (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1982).Google Scholar
Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe, Manufacturing African Studies and Crises (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1997)Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×