<
https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-precolonial-africa-is-vacuous-and-wrong>
"We should expunge, forever, the epithet ‘precolonial’ or any of its cognates
from all aspects of the study of Africa and its phenomena. We should banish
title phrases, names and characterisations of reality and ideas containing the
word.
To those who might be put off by the severity of the proposal, or its
ideological-police ring, I hear you and ask only that, with just a little
patience, you hear me out. It will not take much to jolt us out of the present
unthinking in assuming that ‘precolonial’ or ‘traditional’, and ‘indigenous’,
has any worthwhile role to play in our attempt to track, describe, explain and
make sense of African life and history.
When ‘precolonial’ is used for describing African ideas, processes,
institutions and practices, through time, it misrepresents them. When deployed
to explain African experience and institutions, and characterise the logic of
their evolution through history, it is worthless and theoretically vacuous. The
concept of ‘precolonial’ anything hides, it never discloses; it obscures, it
never illuminates; it does not aid understanding in any manner, shape or form."
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
