On the Pre-Conditions of Beginning a Discourse on Matters in Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID3906100
AuthorsClemens Zobel (Hess (United States), corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume12
Issue12
Publication date2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
Venuee-cadernos CES (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1647-0737 • E-ISSN: 1647-0737
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/eces.677
OpenAlexW2054191272
LanguageEN
References cited24

What are the pre-conditions of making truth claims about phenomena in Africa? In this article I seek to outline a few basic presuppositions, which have enabled discourses on matters in Africa, making them coincide with something real by creating and reconfiguring their referents, while rendering others invisible. From a perspective influenced by my training in the history and anthropology of Africa in Paris, I particularly deal with the lasting impact of Enlightenment thought, cultural and functionalist anthropology and the ideas of French colonial officials. An examination of how the overdeterminations of the object “Africa” could be escaped involves an assessment of the ideas of Valentin Y. Mudimbe, Jean-Loup Amselle, Achille Mbembe and Johannes Fabian

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Enlightenment · Epistemology · History of anthropology · Presupposition · Sociology · Visual arts · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · History · Migration, Identity, and Health · Philosophy

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