Short Abstract

This roundtable addresses working conditions and ideological dimensions that undermine knowledge production through African prisms. It interrogates how the African Studies Community might pursue knowledge that serves human dignity rather than the hegemonic and extractive practices of empires.

Long Abstract

African scholars have criticised ‘the invention of Africa’ (Mudimbe, 1988), its ‘dis-memberment’ (Ngũgĩ, 2009), and the ‘extraversion logics’ in African Studies (Hountondji, 2011). Nowadays, the field is dominated by discourses on decolonisation and reconfigurations, foregrounding the pluralistic ‘African-centred’ views in a field restricted by Western thought. In these debates remains the paradoxical image of the “qualified” producers and the legitimisers of knowledge about Africa, reminiscent of an imbalanced power relation. Recently, the focus has shifted from researching the idea of Africa to exploring how Africa-related scholarship does African Studies–including to understand the world–given their growing position(ality) within the global system of knowledge production and circulation.

Reflecting these developments, this roundtable will address the following questions: 1. What does ‘knowing’ mean from an African prism, and how do we know within such a prismatic framework? 2. What distinguishes an epistemically situated knowing from a merely biographical or geographical one? 3. How can we prevent knowledge produced from/about/in Africa from feeding ‘extraversion logics’ and neocolonial libraries? 4. What practical steps can Europe-based African Studies scholars take to breathe life into the Africa Charter for Transformative Knowledge Collaboration? and 5. How can all African studies scholars build a convivial field of study in Europe?

We will address these questions from our disciplines (Anthropology, Islamic Studies, Sociology, African Comparative Literatures, and History) and expand the roundtable to include attendees’ voices. Our aim is to create a venue for a critical and constructive dialogue on the place and possibilities of African studies scholars in Europe.