Short Abstract:

This roundtable will scrutinize claims to decolonization as asserted in a broad array of academic disciplines and institutions involved in the study of Africa. What steps are needed toward decolonizing African Studies more generally and in Germany in particular?

Long Abstract:

Calls for decolonialization nowadays seem ubiquitous. They have left the confines of the Global South and abound in the academy of the Global North. Little if anything is left that has not been posited as the object of “decolonizing”. At the same time, what decolonialization means and entails in the respective context has become increasingly vague. The inflationary use of the term seems to have stripped it of its value: the more widely it is used, the less clear it becomes.

This roundtable will scrutinize claims to decolonization as asserted in a broad array of academic disciplines and institutions involved in the study of Africa. How can we identify serious attempts to respond to the exigencies of decoloniality? How do these attempts differ on account of their geographic location and the positionality of their protagonists? How can we explain that the “decolonial bandwagon” seems to attract more and more passengers? What steps are needed toward decolonizing African Studies more generally and in Germany in particular?