Paper short abstract:

An African/black perspective on Europe is rare and often satirical holding up a mirror to a European audience. Following an Afrocentric perspective, this paper discusses empirical studies by African/black scholars on Europe and highlights the discrepancies and debates they bring to the fore.

Paper long abstract:

Various conceptualizations of Africa and thus African studies circulate: a definition focusing on geographical location, a cultural definition taking sub-Saharan Africa as a start (Gyekye 1995), or an approach that includes diaspora scientists sharing a viewpoint of racial dominance and oppression (Appiah 1992). The latter perspective includes African researchers independent of their location and allows for an Afrocentric perspective. This implies that studies conducted by African/black scholars bring a distinct perspective compared to studies conducted by non-Africans / non-blacks. Following this view, all studies conducted by Africans, regardless of the research region, would belong to African studies. If so, studies of European social and cultural phenomena conducted by African scholars would be a highly neglected area of African studies.

This perspective exists rarely and if mostly as satirical contributions holding up a mirror to a European audience. One of the few studies is on dog ownership in Germany by a Cameroonian anthropologist (Ndonko 2001) another more anecdotal paper on the post-purchase guarantee of dish sets (Macamo, oral presentation 2009).

In the spirit of reconfiguring and redefining African studies, this paper discusses why there are so few papers that empirically explore Europe from an African / black perspective; a perspective particularly valuable to provide insights into themes, perspectives, and emotions of Europe from an African / black gaze. We ask: What Discrepancies and Debates do these location-based African Studies bring to the fore? How does this view add to African Studies and its reconfiguration? What are methodological, strategic or other challenges?