THE RATIONALE FOR AFRICAN STUDIES

1^st Lecture

21/05/ 2021

Objectives/Learning outcomes

• At the end of the lecture, a student should be able to:
• To Understand the distinctive nature of Africa
• To Explain various (mis)representations of Africa
• To Appreciate the significant contribution of Africa to world civilization.
• To Appreciate the place of African Art in Development.

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WHO IS

AN

AFRICAN?

Reflection!

• How are African identities constructed in the face of a mosaic of identities that peoples of African ancestry living within and beyond the continent bear?

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• To what extent do all categorized as Africans or as having an African pedigree perceive themselves as Africans?

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• To what degree are all who perceive themselves as Africans accepted as such?

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Reflection!

• Are there levels of “Africanness,” and are some more African than others? - More or less?

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• How do African identities interface with other levels of identity and citizenship in Africa?

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• And what are the implications of the contentious nature of African identities and citizenship for the projects of pan-Africanism, the making of the African-nation, and Africa’s development trajectories?

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What do you think?

Nneka Egbuna: English-language neo-soul singer. Nigeria-Owerri born. Migrated to Germany at 19 and now based there.

Elisandra Souza:

Brazilian poet, author of anthologies and journalist

Dr. Mayra Santos-Febres:

Puerto Rican novelist, literary critic, and intellectual; her favourite topics: race, gender and sexuality in Caribbean societies

Africans?

Barack Hussein Obama – past President of the US

Bob Marley – Reggae Artist

Dr. Guy Scott – Former Acting President of Zambia

Dr. W.E.B. DuBois – Pan-Africanist Scholar

Defining Africanness

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Multilayered dimensions

• Legal - e.g. citizenship, parentage, naturalization.
• Conceptual/Philosophical: shared value systems and worldview (for example, “ubuntu” – I am because we are) e.g. Belief in the ancestors
• Cultural: tangible (buildings, monuments, artifacts), intangible (skills; highly developed oral traditions; knowledge systems)
• Genotype (DNA sequence/the genetic makeup )
• Phenotype (Outward appearance)

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Defining Africa

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• Race? - note range of racial types on the continent
• Descent?: People of African descent? (Large concentrations in Northern and Southern Americas, and the Caribbean. They are also found in India, the Middle East etc.)
• Political? - citizenship in one of the 54 countries of the AU – see the constitutive act; long term residence in an African country?
• Geographic? - Countries on the African Continent/Map
• Allegiance ? - Dedication to African heritage

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��Why Study Africa?��

• To learn African cultures and history so as not to be dis-rooted or alienated from their origins…appropriate development strategies

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• To correct the impression about Africa as a dark continent.

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• To get a deeper understanding about Africa.

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MISREPRESENTING AFRICA

Africa has no history/civilization

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Africans have small brains

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Africa is a dark continent

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Africans have inferior minds

�1. AFRICA HAS NO HISTORY�

Trevor Roper (1963) eminent professor of History, Oxford University n his inaugural lecture at Oxford in said:

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“Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at the present there is none, there is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness... And darkness is not a subject of history”.

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• Pre-literate communities were considered primitive and uncreative and could not have made any significant contribution to world civilization.

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AFRICA HAS NO HISTORY…cont

Hegel (1956). Philosophy of History

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Divided the people of the world into two:

Historical people who had contributed to the development of humanity, and

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Non-historical people who had no hand in the development of mankind. Africa was placed in the latter category.

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Disregards Africa’s contribution to civilization.

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A justification for enslavement and colonization of Africa.

2. AFRICANS HAVE SMALL BRAINS

Frederick Tiedemann (1936). A Professor of anatomy & physiology.

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• The structure of the brain, the noblest part of the human body in reference to its functions.

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• He sought to establish the essential difference between the structure of the brain of the black & European.

2. AFRICANS HAVE SMALL BRAINS…cont

• He establishes a connection between brain size and intellectual powers & functions of the mind and concludes thus;

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a. The African has a remarkably small brain. (approximates that of a monkey, with reduced) intellectual power

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b. The brain blacks have more resemblance to that of a monkey than the brain of the European. (animal features enlarged)

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3. AFRICA IS A DARK CONTINENT

• The phrase Dark Continent was popularized by British explorer Henry M. Stanley through his boosting sales titled “through the Dark Continent”

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• Africa was called a Dark Continent because of the mysteries and savagery they expected to find in the interior.

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AFRICA IS A DARK CONTINENT…cont

• European leaders and explorers purposefully ignored earlier sources of information on Africa, erasing maps (lakes, mountains cities etc

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• Civilizing the “natives” fed into the romantic depiction of a place that required saving by strong men of adventure.

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AFRICA IS A DARK CONTINENT…cont

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• Africa was seen as a place full of beasts (crocodiles, lions, etc.) laying sinister silence in the great rivers to cause havoc.

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• Danger, disease and death were part of the uncharted reality.

• This belief stems from their ethnocentric stereotypes or ignorant perception that Africa is a dark continent and its people are barbaric.

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• Europeans believed that their culture and civilization were superior to those of Black Africans

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• For instance, “African music, dancing and sculpture were labelled "primitive art."

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The distinctive nature of Africa�

Africa is notorious for the following:

• Overpopulation
• Poverty
• Drought
• Over utilisation of scarce resources
• Environmental crises
• Corruption
• Ethnic tensions
• Civil wars

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POSITIVE REPRESENTAIONS OF AFRICA

• Africa has a rich and complex history but there is widespread ignorance of this heritage. 

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• The Great Pyramid of Giza in Cairo is considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Further south are a thousand pyramids that of the Kingdom of Kush, in what is now Sudan.

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• Tombs, temples and burial chambers complete with painted scenes and writings which UNESCO describes as masterpieces "of creative genius.

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�AFRICA IS NOT A COUNTRY�

• Africa, a continent of 54 independent countries, and it’s the world’s oldest populated area. The continent of Africa is vast, the second-largest continent in the world.

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• About 25 percent of the languages spoken in African countries aren’t recognized anywhere else in the world, which is a testament to its diversity and fullness.

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• Every African country is different, and each has its own cultures and subcultures

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� AFRICA IS SAFE�

• Morocco. There are pristine beaches, magnificent landscape, and festivals.

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• Ghana. Rich history and diverse wildlife, a well-travelled destination for tourists. The locals are known for being some of the friendliest in the world.

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• Senegal. Popular attractions include Goree Island, Dakar and Pink Lake. The Casamance Region is also popular for dolphin watching and visiting remote beaches.

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• South Africa. South Africa is a beautiful place due to their rich culture, wildlife and beautiful landscapes.

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AFRICA IS NOT POOR

Remains largely underexplored, Africa’s potential for oil is positioned to grow significantly over the next two decades. Additional Africa is enormously rich in;

• Industrial Diamond.
• Bauxite.
• Phosphate Rocks. Algeria, Egypt, Senegal and South Africa account for most of the continent’s phosphate rock exports.
• Gold. As the most mined resource in Africa, it’s responsible for about 21 percent of the world’s total. Countries exporting gold include South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania.

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Africa’s Major Contribution to World Civilization

• Paper, Alphabet, Ink, and Pen
• The Kemites of northern Africa invented paper from stripes of papyrus reed (John G. Jackson, 1993).

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• The word “paper” was derived from the word “papyrus,” a Kemetic word that originally meant “that which belongs to the house.” 

• The ink was made from a combination of vegetable gum, soot, and water (James Henry Breasted,1915).

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• Calendar: the ancient people of Kemet invented the calender through their meticulous study of the sun, moon and stars.
• The ancient Kemet were the first to develop a solar calendar which divided the year into 365 days with 12 months of 30 days each.
• Successive civilizations went on to create their own calendars, owing much to the pioneering development in ancient Kemet.

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• Global Development (Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General)
• Agriculture (Prof Monty Jones)
• Academia (Wọlé Ṣóyínká)
• International Trade and Commerce (Frederick M. Jones)
• ICT (Dr. Thomas Mensah)
• Mathematics (Francis Allotey)
• Science (Souleymane Mboup), etc

African Art, and its place in the Community

Give examples of things you consider to be art in your

immediate environment….

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What is African Art?

• Art made in Africa, by Africans in particular styles, or Africans in the Diaspora with African themes.
• African art reflects African philosophy and ideas communicated visually through different materials and ideas.
• Serves several functions as well as decorative and aesthetic purposes.
• Choice of materials for an artwork varies from one geographic area to the other depending on natural resources, environment and climate, beliefs systems etc

African Art, and the Environment

• People in central to southern parts of Africa have soft stones from which they carve stone statuettes.

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• People in regions and places where there is abundance of metals such as, copper, bronze, brass and iron, used them to produce art.

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• Art works are made from materials like wood, stone, glass, tree bark, woven and printed textiles, clay, ivory, metals, shells, leather, glass, mirror, stones etc.

Qualities of African Art

• African sculptures are three-dimensional works

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• African art works are usually frontal, that is they always face the viewer. The front part is emphasised and contains most of the ideas or features the artist wants to portray.

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• The sculpture or designs represent certain concepts and ideas, and not an exact replica or an attempt to represent the likeness of the person or object.

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• Proportions do not always correspond with real life figures.

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An Artist & his/her Position in the Community

• Skilled people with very special powers from the creator or the Supreme Being.

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• They are despised and feared because of the special powers they possess which enables them to injure or harm people.

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• They act as bards for the leaders, by composing various types of praise songs for them.

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• Considered as healers, mediators, narrators of history, translators of traditional philosophy, beliefs and ideas into visual forms

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Training Process & Acquisition of Skills

• Training in art is usually through informal apprenticeship. Starts by performing various errands and assignments.

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• Often done on part-time basis

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• No age restrictions to when one can start learning.

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• In some communities, people are born into castes, and & that determines what they do.

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• A father passes on his skills to his son, but this is not obligatory.

Importance of Art to African Communities

• Until few centuries back, many African communities did not have a written language besides spoken word.

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• Means by which they recorded and kept account and memory of incidents.

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• A medium to create abodes for spirit beings.

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• Traditional political institutions use art to distinguish themselves from the ordinary citizens, and demonstrate the wealth of the state.

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• Objects for religious performances etc

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• Art works made for adorning the body.

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�Gender Related Roles and Relations in Art

Why Gender Related Roles in African Art? forms of art are guided by, the nature of the god that inhabits the material which informs the traditions and beliefs on who produces what type of art. These responsibilities are firmly grounded in their cultural principles.

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Male artists - their materials and products

• Difficult to work a material into an art form
• inhabited by more vicious and powerful spirits
• The cyclical menstrual period of women are a taboo to many gods and deities.
• Men generally produce sculpture in wood, bone, ivory and stone.
• blacksmiths are members of a cult called Nyamkalaw, and are controlled by this guild or caste
• among the Tiv in Nigeria, men are the sole producers of figurative pipes.

Sources on African Studies

• Archaeology
• Excavation of specially selected sites
• Linguistics
• Study of the origin, structure, and changes of a language
• Oral Tradition
• Transmitted by word of mouth and consists, as does written literature, of both prose and verse
• Ancient Written Sources
• Oldest books, religious texts, source of other writing systems (e.g. Latin, Greek, etc.)
• Contemporary Written/Institutional Sources

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Thank you