Paper short abstract:

Accepting Hountondji's notion that African studies as a field is founded on Western epistemologies and interests, this paper seeks to explore the role of race, specifically 'whiteness', in shaping the global politics of knowledge production about the continent.

Paper long abstract:

Is it ethical for white people to study Africa? Given the high number of Western university programmes, institutions, and publications dedicated to the study of Africa and given the high number of white people who work professionally in Africa studies, one might automatically assume that only a racist could think that the answer to this question is anything but an obvious "Yes!" The answer may, of course, still be "Yes," but it might not be quite so obvious. At any rate, I want to suggest that this issue - a major point of contention among black and African scholars for decades - is worthy of intellectual investigation. Accepting Hountondji's notion that African studies as a field is founded on Western epistemologies and interests, this paper seeks to explore the role of race, specifically 'whiteness', in shaping the global politics of knowledge production about the continent. Inspired by David Roediger's history of working-class white racism in America, in which Roediger pointedly observed that there is a fundamental epistemic asymmetry between typical white views of blacks and typical black views of whites - these are not cognizers linked by a reciprocal ignorance but rather groups whose respective privilege and subordination tend to produce self-deception, bad faith, evasion, and misrepresentation, on the one hand, and more veridical perceptions, on the other hand - this paper asks to what extent might this be true of white Western views of Africa? And what are the ethical implications of such epistemic asymmetry?