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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 May 2016
At meetings of African studies specialists, informal conversation often turns to the future of area studies and of African studies in particular. In her 1996 monograph African Studies in the United States: A Perspective, Jane I. Guyer goes as far as saying, “No one’s view of the future of African Studies is rosy.” Attacks on area studies during the 1990s, especially attacks coming from scholars with African specialist credentials, such as Robert Bates, stung researchers who work on Africa, most of whom are based in traditional departments. The crux of these arguments seems to be that area studies are becoming irrelevant as the disciplines become more “scientific” in their approach and more sophisticated methodologically.
1. Guyer, Jane, African Studies in the United States: A Perspective (Atlanta: ASA Press, 1996), 10 Google Scholar.
2. Bates, Robert, “Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful Controversy?” PS: Political Science and Politics 30 (June 1997): 166–170 Google Scholar.
3. Bates, Robert, Mudimbe, V.Y., and O’Barr, Jean, eds., Africa and the Disciplines: The Contributions of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)Google Scholar; National Council for Area Studies Associations, Prospects for Faculty in Area Studies (Stanford, Calif.: National Council for Area Studies Associations, 1991); Raphael, Vincente, “The Culture of Area Studies in the U.S.,” Social Text 41 (Winter 1994): 91-111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.