Paper short abstract:

This paper gives a general overview of programmes and actors currently active in African Studies.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will give special importance to the political and scientific history of the construction of the scientific area of African Studies.

It questions the heuristic validity of the category "African" and "Non-African" in order to understand if they serve to legitimise (or not) knowledge produced about African societies.

By doing this it will include in the discussion the question of the new intellectuals and analyse their capacity to function as a melting pot of different kinds of knowledge as which they are often seen.