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Paper short abstract:

This paper contributes to conversations about the reconfiguration of African Studies by proposing solutions ranging from funding models, methodology, citation politics, etc. even within the larger reality of asymmetrical economic power relations between the Global North and the Global South.

Paper long abstract:

The conundrum of the reconfiguration of African Studies is entangled with a whole set of other attendant problems mostly centred around the question of economic power as a base. The base of this power in economic relations between the Global North and the Global South manifests in the superstructure of knowledge production in academia that demonstrate these unequal relations. The calls for the reconfiguration of African Studies must necessarily address the waning power of the call of decolonisation that has been weakened by academic careerism, political correctness appeasement by those in power, managerial co-option of genuine struggles, etc. I propose a series of deployments with clear indicators to address some of these challenges as far as possible within the framework of hegemonic economic relations while admitting to the impossibility of reconfiguring towards decolonisation any academic institution without reconfiguring the entire economic and political system that governs those very institutions. Even with such profound limitations, there are a few the steps that Africans, the African diaspora and allies can undertake towards decolonisation. There can be no total epistemic justice outside of economic justice that (re)produce the very relations of the Global North and the Global South. The political economy of knowledge owes its being to the actual political economy between Africa, its friends, frenemies and enemies.