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Hodgepodge Historiography: Documents, Itineraries, and the Absence of Archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2015

Luise White
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Abstract

African historians frequently argue that it is almost impossible to research postcolonial history because of the absence or haphazard nature of African archives. I argue that this is not so much an obstacle to writing the history of Africa after 1960s as it is a complement to it: incomplete and chaotic archives and documents scattered around the globe reveal some of the sloppiness of governmentality and how hit-and-miss statecraft has been in the recent past.

Résumé

Les historiens de l’Afrique évoquent souvent l’extrême difficulté à faire des recherches sur la période postcoloniale en raison de l’absence ou de l’incohérence des archives africaines. Je soutiens que cette situation n’est pas tant un obstacle qu’un complément à l’écriture de l’histoire de l’Afrique après 1960: l’incomplétude et le désordre des archives et des documents dispersés aux quatre coins du globe sont révélateurs du caractère erratique de la gouvernementalité et des trajectoires décousues de la construction de l’état dans le passé récent.

Type
Writing the History of Africa after 1960
Information
History in Africa , Volume 42 , June 2015 , pp. 309 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

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