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Value-Orientation in Historical Research and Writing: The Colonial Period in African History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Jarle Simensen
Jarle Simensen*
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Trondheim
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Extract

The aim of this paper is to use African historiography as an example of how value-orientations influence historical research and writing. This can be seen as a contribution to the never-ending discussion about the problem of objectivity in history. African historiography is particularly well suited for such an analysis. Its birth as a separate area of academic study after World War II was partly the result of internal, professional developments, such as the establishment of African universities, the postwar development of the social sciences, interdisciplinary research, and a more global orientation in the Western academic world. But it was also closely related to external political and ideological developments, like African nationalism, decolonization, the cold war, development aid, and the rise of new left movements in the Western world. The subject matter of modern African history is of obvious significance not only for Africans, but also for the self-image of Europe and for the relationship between Africa and the West: the nature of European expansion, the role of capitalism in the development of the modern world, the concept of imperialism, and the global relevance of democracy and socialism. The interconnections between ideology and history are therefore particulary clear in this field.

The plan of the paper is to discuss how value-orientations within the different schools of history in this field reveal themselves in the choice of themes, in causal explanation, in basic concepts and in counterfactual argument. The term “value-orientation” I will define so as to cover interests, ideals, and personal identification. I will distinguish between three main “schools,” the term being used in the broadest sense of the word: the colonial school, also covering later historians writing in the same tradition; the Africanist school, dominant since the late 1950s; and the radical (“neo-Marxist,” “dependency,” “under-development”) school, influential since its emergence in the 1970s.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 17 , January 1990 , pp. 267 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1990

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References

Notes

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the German-Norwegian Historians' Conference in Berlin in May 1989. If a certain didactic flavor remains, it may be due to the fact that it was originally read to an audience not schooled in African history.

2. For recent stocktaking of developments in African studies and African historiography see the special ASA issue of the African Studies Review, 26 (September 1983)Google Scholar; Neale, Catherine: Writing “Independent” African History: African Historiography, 1960–1980 (Westport, 1985)Google Scholar, and Jewsiewicki, Bogumil and Newbury, David (eds.), African Historiographies: What Histories for Which Africa? (Beverly Hills, 1986).Google Scholar For earlier surveys see my “Fra utforskninegn av afrikansk historie,” Historisk Tidsskrift, 49 (1970)Google Scholar, and “Den radikale skole i utviklingsstudiene og dens syn på afrikansk historie,” Historisk Tidsskrift 56 (1977).Google Scholar This paper has benefited from several historiographical cand. philol. theses in the University of Trondheim; see specific references below.

3. For an introductory bibliography to the huge literature on value judgments in history, see A. G. Weiler: “Value Reference and Value Judgments in Historiography,” presented at the XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences (San Francisco, 22 -29 August 1975).

4. von Ranke, Leopold, Weltgeschichte (1881–1886), vi–viiGoogle Scholar, quoted in Westermann, Gustav, Geschichte Afrikas. Staatenbildungen südlich der Sahara (Køln, 1952), 1.Google Scholar The best source to what we may call the colonial worldview, although written by a scholar-administrator, is Hailey's, LordAn African Survey (London, 1938Google Scholar, revised ed. 1956). Among historians we may take as examples Perham, Margery, The Colonial Reckoning (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Knaplund, Paul, Britain: Commonwealth and Empire (London, 1956)Google Scholar; Hancock, William, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, 1–2 (London, 1937–1942).Google Scholar Contemporary historians in this tradition, but with broader perspectives, are Gann, Lewis H. and Duignan, Peter, most pronounced in The Burden of Empire. An Appraisal of Western Colonialism in Africa South of the Sahara (London, 1967).Google Scholar

5. The line between the colonial and Africanist school is blurred; the first “tribal” and territorial histories were written by colonial officers and educators and early African intellectuals; in the case of Ghana, for instance, Ward, W. E. F., A History of Ghana (London, 1948)Google Scholar, and Reindorf, C. C., The History of the Gold Coast and Asante (Basel, 1895).Google Scholar As examples of syntheses within the Africanist perspective we may take Oliver, Roland and Fage, J.D., A Short History of Africa (London, 1962)Google Scholar, Curtin, Philip, Feierman, Steven, Thompson, Leonard and Vansina, Jan, African History (New York, 1978)Google Scholar, the Cambridge History of Africa (London, 1975-)Google Scholar, and the UNESCO History of Africa (London, 1976-).Google Scholar Main stages in the development of the Africanist school can be seen from three anthologies: Vansina, Janet al., eds., The Historian in Tropical Africa (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar, Ranger, Terence, ed., Emerging Themes in African History (London, 1968)Google Scholar and Fyfe, Christopher, ed., African Studies Since 1945 (London, 1976).Google Scholar

6. The phrase of the “happy ending” I have borrowed from Freund, Bill, The Making of Contemporary Africa (Bloomington, 1984), 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. The radical perspective was dramatically launched by Fanon, Franz in his The Wretched of the Earth (London, 1961).Google Scholar As examples of syntheses within the radical perspective we may take Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Amin, Samir, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa (Harmondsworth, 1973)Google Scholar; Freund, Making; and Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine, African Endurance and Change South of the Sahara (Berkeley, 1989).Google Scholar A representative anthology is Gutkind, P. C. W. and Wallerstein, I., eds., Political Economy of Contemporary Africa (2d ed.: Beverly Hills, 1985).Google Scholar

8. The social identification of a scholar of a “school” is seldom explicitly declared, only implicitly revealed. The relationship between interests, ideals, and identification may be difficult to entangle, and the exact connection between identification and scholarly product problematic to define. Perhaps we should talk of functional rather than causal relationships. Crudely put, the colonial school functioned to the advantage of the European ruling classes and their African proteges, the Africanist school to the advantage of the African nationalist elite and their Western partners, and the radical school to the advantage of the anti-capitalist movements in the West and, by declaration, the African workers and peasants. In America the Africanist school fulfils important needs in the Afro-American “roots” movement, and the development of African studies in the United States, both with regard to volume and content, is clearly influenced by the interests and sensitivities of the black American constituency. This is most clearly seen in the courses now developed under programs of “ethnic studies,” whose main purpose is to create respect for the African heritage, implying an openly value-oriented, selective approach, both with regard to topics and to interpretations.

9. On the problem of weighing of causes and the tendency to choose “congenial” causes in analysis of economic underdevelopment, see Landes, David, The Unbound Prometheus, Technological Change and Industrial Developments in Western Europe From 1750 to the Present (London, 1969), 357–58.Google Scholar

10. Lenin, V. I., Imperialism. The Highest Stage of Captialism (rev. ed.: New York, 1939).Google Scholar On the hierarchization of causes from a left-wing, but non-socialist, position see Hobson, John, Imperialism. A Study (London, 1901).Google Scholar A good anthology within this perspective is Sutcliffe, B. and Owen, R., eds., Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London, 1972).Google Scholar

11. For an example see Robinson, R. and Gallagher, J., Africa and the Victorians (New York, 1961)Google Scholar, and Fieldhouse, David, Economics of Empire, 1830-1914 (London, 1973).Google Scholar The debate over the Robinson-Gallagher thesis is treated in Berg, Erik, “Robinson-Gallagher-kontroversen,” Cand.philol.thesis, History, Trondheim, 1975.Google Scholar

12. For the Mau Mau debate see Rosberg, C. and Nottingham, J.,The Myth of ‘Mau-Mau’: Nationalism in Kenya (Stanford, 1966)Google Scholar; Furedi, Frank, “The Social Composition of the Mau Mau Movement in the White Highlands,” Journal of Peasant Studies, 1 (1973/1974), 486–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the special issue on Mau, Mau, Kenya Historical Review, 5/2, 1977.Google Scholar A historiographical treatment is Reppen, Jan Inge, “Debatten om arsakene til Mau Mau,” Cand.philol.thesis. History, Trondheim, 1978.Google Scholar

13. Lugard, F. D., The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London, 1922).Google Scholar Classical economic history in this tradition include Hancock, Survey, and Bauer, P. T., West African Trade (London, 1954).Google Scholar For a modern statement of the same position see the introduction and conclusion in Gann, Lewis and Duignan, Peter, eds., Colonialism in Africa, I - W (Cambridge, 1968–1975).Google Scholar

14. Examples of this position are Hopkins, G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Iliffe, John, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1978)Google Scholar and my own Afrikas historie, Nye perspektiver (Oslo, 1983).Google Scholar

15. For an example see Freund, Making. The capitalist world market as a global framework for analysis has been most consistently and influentially promoted by Wallerstein, Immanuel, for instance, in his The Modern World System (London, 1974)Google Scholar, and Samir Amin, Neo-Colonialism. Classical monographs are Brett, E., Colonialism and Underdevelopment in East Africa (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Leys, Colin, Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism (London, 1975)Google Scholar and Arrighi, Giovanni, The Political Economy of Rhodesia (Leiden, 1967).Google Scholar

16. Freund, Making, is largely written from such a critical position. A pointed expression of the same is Freund's review of Seidman, Ann, The Roots of Crisis in Southern Africa (Trenton, 1985)Google Scholar, in IJAHS 19(1986), 741–42.Google Scholar Similar criticism—and self-criticism—in Leys, Colin, “Captial Acumulation, Class Formation and Dependency—the Significance of the Kenyan Case” in Socialist Register (1978), 241–66.Google Scholar A contribution with a front both against the Africanist and the radical school is Ochieng, William, “Undercivilization in Black Africa,” Kenya Historical Review, 2 (1974), 45–57.Google Scholar

17. Meinecke, F., Kausalitäten und Werte in der Geschichte [1928]Google Scholar, translated and reprinted in Stern, Fritz, ed., Varieties of History (New York, 1956), 268–73.Google Scholar

18. This is the general line of reasoning in Popper, Karl, i.a., in The Poverty of Historicism (London, 1957).Google Scholar

19. Gann, /Duignan, , Burden of Empire, vi, 130.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., 365.

21. Ibid., passim.

22. The voluminous, pathos-ridden, romanticizing writings of Basil Davidson are the best example of this genre. Examples of nationalist leaders who used historical arguments to build up their ideology are Nkrumah and Nyerere.

23. An example is Walter Rodney, Europe. For a political reception of this message see the postscript to the 1974 edition by the Tanzanian minister A. M. Baku.

24. Carr, E. H., What is History (London, 1961), ch. vGoogle Scholar, “Progress in History.”

25. See, for instance, Apter, David, The Gold Coast (Princeton, 1955).Google Scholar The American-Weberian social sciences stand out with regard to jargon; British political scientists are closer to the historical tradition. For comparison, see Austin, Dennis, Politics in Ghana, 1946-1960 (London, 1964).Google Scholar

26. Manning, Patrick, “Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Colonialism,” African Economic History Review, 1/3 (1974), 15–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A more general treatment by the same author is “Notes Toward a Theory of Ideology in Historical Writing on Modern Africa,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 2 (1974), 235–54.Google Scholar My typology in what follows will largely build on Manning.

27. The following is mostly based on my own “Counterfactual Arguments in Historical Analysis: From the Debate on the Partition of Africa and the Effect of Colonial Rule,” HA, 5 (1978), 169–86.Google Scholar A useful bibliography on counterfactuals can be found in Fischer, David H., Historians' Fallacies (New York, 1970).Google Scholar A classical analysis of the problem is Weber, Max, “Objektive Moglichkeit und adequate Verursachung” in Kritische Studien auf dem Gebiet der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Logik [1905]Google Scholar, reprinted in Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Wissenschafslehre (Tubingen, 1922).Google Scholar A modern treatment of the logical issues involved in Elster, Jon, Logic and Society, Contradictions and Possible Worlds (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

28. For examples of such counterfactual reasoning see Thomas Hodgkin, foreword to Green, R. H. and Seidman, Ann, Unity or Poverty? (London, 1968), 14Google Scholar, Crowder, Michael, West Africa Under Colonial Rule (London, 1968), 8Google Scholar; Ajayi, J. F. Ade, “The Continuity of African Institutions Under Colonialism,” in Ranger, , Emerging Themes, 160.Google Scholar

29. Rodney, , Europe, 160, 245–47, 250–51, 253–54Google Scholar; Cabral, Amilcar, “Brief Analysis of the Social Structures in Guinea,” in his Revolution in Guinea (2d ed.: London, 1974), 56.Google Scholar

30. Gann/Duignan, Burden of Empire; Perham, , Colonial Reckoning (London, 1961), 134.Google Scholar On Perham's view on African history, see Gjestland, Anne Margrethe, “Ideologi og historie. Margery Perhams syn pi afrikansk historie,” Cand.philol.thesis, history, Trondheim, 1974.Google Scholar

31. Hopkins, , Economic History, 203.Google Scholar

32. For examples see Brett, , Colonialism, 305Google Scholar; Leys, , Underdevelopment, 28–29.Google Scholar

33. Manning, “Notes.”

34. Namier, Lewis, “History,” in Stern, , Varieties, 375.Google Scholar With emphasis added.

35. A strong argument for the autonomous, liberating role of intellectual curiosity is made in Nipperdey, Th., “Kann Geschichte objektiv sein,” Nachdenlcen über die deutsche Geschichte (Beck, 1986).Google Scholar

36. Dosse, François, L'histoire en miettes (Paris, 1987).Google Scholar

37. Feyerabend, Paul K., Against Method. Outline of an Anarchist Theory of Knowledge (London, 1978).Google Scholar

38. J. A. Seip, “Hvorfor historie,” stensil, Historisk institutt, Oslo, ca. 1970, p. 3.

39. For a discussion of the difference between “relationism” and “relativism” and an argument for pluralism see Naess, Arne, “Historie—pluralisme og historiske synteser,” Syntese, analyse, komparasjon. [Studier i historisk metode, 6] (Oslo, 1972), 9–18.Google Scholar

40. Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962).Google Scholar An effort to apply Kuhn to African historiography is Foster-Carter, Aidan, “From Rostow to Gunder Frank: Conflicting Paradigms in the Analysis of Underdevelopment,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 3 (1973), 7–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, criticized by Taylor, John in “Neo-Marxism and Underdevelopment: a Sociological Phantasy,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 4 (1974), 5–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar