Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Joschka Philipps
(University of Bayreuth)
Serawit Debele (University of Bayreuth)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Azza Mustafa Ahmed
(HUMA - Institute for Humanities in Africa, UCT)
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- African researchers in the European academic system
- Location:
- Room 1228
- Sessions:
- Friday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
Responding to the theme of the conference “Africa and Europe: Reciprocal Perspectives”, this panel meditates on the question of what Europe might learn from Africa. It is long overdue that this question be raised and applied to the ways in which knowledge is produced in the first place.
Long Abstract:
Responding to the theme of the conference “Africa and Europe: Reciprocal Perspectives”, this panel meditates on the question of what Europe might learn from Africa. It is long overdue that this question be raised and applied to the ways in which knowledge is produced in the first place. In the social sciences that originated in Europe in the wake of “modernization”, knowledge production is a surprisingly asocial and individualized practice, typically contingent on a relative withdrawal of the researcher from the respective social realities under study. What can we learn from less individualized contexts, in Africa and elsewhere, where knowledge production is a more immediate and collective practice, where the sources of knowledge are not necessarily written, stable and privatized, where thinking and doing are not considered as separate, and where multilingual environments carry an inevitable multiplicity of meanings? What potentials lie in mundane theory-building, and how are we to deal with these potentials in African Studies? Following Achille Mbembe, we ask these questions to explore “thinking the world from Africa,” where Africa is no longer an object of European epistemic curiosity but the provider of tools to engage with the world. We invite contributions that deal with what we call an epistemic otherwise that might allow us to analyse the habits and conventions in the humanities and the social sciences.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 10 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
What could Europe learn from Africa? One answer could be insignificance and insouciance; two concepts that can feed, inspire and co-exist with Euro-American science. At the same time, they confront science with the wisdom of people who do not care about science.
Paper long abstract:
What might Europe learn from Africa? One answer could be insignificance and insouciance; two concepts that I attempt to develop, at the intersection of uncertainty and destiny, through a comparative discussion between my experiences in Europe since August 2021 and what would have happened in similar circumstances in my home country, Guinea. This comparison will serve to discuss the reciprocity of perspectives (in terms of knowledge production) through the prism of human interactions from four angles: i) the relationship of the human to the state with its rules and machinations, ii) the relationship of the human to the economic with its quest for monetarisation, iii) the relationship of the human to the human with its modes of socialisation and iv) the relationship of the human to knowledge with its uncertainties. I will use this comparison to question the sui generis applicability of concepts produced in non-African environments on African realities. In the end, I will argue for the emergence of new paradigms based on the postulates of insignificance and insouciance that can feed, inspire and co-exist with Euro-American science. They will, at the same time, be paradigms that confront science with the wisdom of people who don't care about science (for good reasons).
Paper short abstract:
The paper aims to dwell on reviews such as Mensagem, Présence Africaine and Black Orpheus, the transcontinental connections they established, their contribution to the renovation of the literary environment and episteme in both Africa and Europe and to the reconfiguration of the idea of centre.
Paper long abstract:
While literature often tends to be considered, by the European tradition, as an individual practice, this contribution will focus on the collective editorial works that generations of young African intellectuals, strongly committed to the anti-colonial movements and/ or to Pan-African ideals, built through transnational connections in the 1960’s. In this sense, three journals will be considered: Mensagem, edited by Casa dos Estudantes do Império in Lisbon, Présence Africaine (Dakar and Paris) and Black Orpheus (Idaban). The circulations of texts, authors, and translation between those journals was deeply connected to a conception of art committed to the dislocation of the idea of centre. Those projects addressed oral tradition, visual arts and claimed the dignity of other forms of knowledge. Despite often using the “Metropoles” as intellectual hubs, African epistemes and their diffusion in and outside Africa were central to the reflections of the above-mentioned editorial projects.
Paper short abstract:
Shifting the geography of reason from Europe as an epistemic locale we argue that the pastoralist economies still existing in Sub-Sahara Africa provide real-world examples for conceptions of a good life which the European Degrowth movement strives for.
Paper long abstract:
The early industrialized nations of the Global North must transform their socio-economic institutions to meet the demands of Sustainable Development. Whereas the political mainstream believes that these requirements can be met within the established capitalistic institutions, parts of the civil society – agglomerated under the term “Degrowth” – argue that a radical transformation of the established socio-economic institutions (e.g., property rights, welfare systems) is necessary. To justify this claim, Degrowth advocates attack the established notions of “development”, “progress”, or “modernity”. They argue that these notions endorse a conception of a good/fulfilling/dignified life which neglects two essential constituents: autonomy and conviviality.
Shifting the geography of reason from Europe as an epistemic locale we shall argue that the pastoralist economies still existing in Sub-Sahara Africa provide real-world examples for what the European movement aspires. Particularly, we shall provide evidence from a literature review and own interviews about conceptions of a good life endorsed by semi-nomadic pastoralists from Maasai, Datoga, and Samburu communities living in Tanzania and Kenya. There, too, conceptions of a good life are contested. However, a part of the pastoralists endorses their economies of provisioning because they enable them to be occupied with self-determined, meaningful activities, thus realizing the value of autonomy. Moreover, some implicitly established habits and norms (such as meal-taking practices, house sharing, news sharing/digestion) provide examples for convivial activities missed in the affluent market economies. Generalizing our empirical insights, we shall suggest the hypothesis that there is a global opposition to the established entanglement between capitalist economic systems and ideologies of a good life. This opposition offers an opportunity to learn from other societies that embrace different ways of knowing and being in the world.