File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1996/96-08-26.043, message 119


Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 09:31:12 -0800
From: azfar-AT-wsu.edu (Azfar Hussain)
Subject: Re: Mudimbe


On 25 July frank njubi wrote:

>Azfar:

>I don't think that Mudimbe can be considered an "Africanist".
>Historically, Africanists have been Europeans and Americans who work in
>disciplines like Egyptology, African Studies, Archaeology, etc. They are an
>exclusive club of scholars with a long history in the study of Africa.
>Initially many of them were explorers, missionaries,
>conservationists and scholars associated with institutions like the
>Institute for African and Oriental Studies at the U. of London or the
>Christian Missionary Societies. Few Africans have been accepted in their
>ranks. Indeed, there was a huge controversy a couple of years ago when
>Kwame Anthony Appiah agreed to accept an Africanist award. Therefore, your
>dismissal of Mudimbe based on his "Eurocentric Africanism" cannot fly.
>Mudimbe and other Africans who write about Africanisms are critics of the
>discourse. You wouldn't call Said an Orientalist because he writes about
>orientalism would you?

>njubi

REPLY:

Dear njubi,

When a statement (or a term) is brutally yanked from its context, problems
are  likely to multiply, as has been the case with my use of "Africanist."
If one reads my Mudimbe post carefully, s/he will find that nowhere did I
"dismiss" him as being an  "Eurocentric Africanist." In fact, what I was
trying to say, in response to and agreement with Timothy Burke's post on
the same subject, was that the Mudimbean afroconstructionist genealogy
tends to bypass--or even fails to accommodate theoretically--the many
particular and local Africas. Having made that point, I moved on to my next
and last point, which precisely involved those Africanists in the
metropolis to whom the many Africas pose real discursive challenges.

But  your post now gives me the opportunity to examine your definition of
"Africanism," and also to see how Mudimbe himself envisages and engages the
very notion of Africanism. So let's first  take a look at a page--not a
blank one!

Interestingly enough, Mudimbe, together with Robert H Bates and Jean
O'Barr, in their recent anthology called _Africa and the Disciplines_
(Chicago: the U of Chicago P, 1993), write their dedicatory page thus: "TO
THREE DEDICATED AFRICANISTS--Margaret Rouse Bates, M. Elizabeth
Mudimbe-Boyi, William McAlston O'Barr" (v). So it seems that being an
Africanist for Mudimbe is not so bad, eh? See, he doesn't fail to recognize
and honour "dedicated Africanists!"  Understandably, Mudimbe will find it
hard to accept your definition which seems to give a predominantly negative
status to an "Africanist". Of course, Mudimbe has been critical of some
kinds of Africanisms, but not by dismissing each and every version of
Africanism as such.

Also, your definition seems to delimit the scale and scope of Africanisms
as understood by Mudimbe. According to him, "Africanists" were and are not
only Europeans and Americans but also Africans themselves (perhaps himself
included), as he says in _The Idea of Africa_: "I find it hard to believe
that the majority of AFRICANISTS--AFRICAN as well as WESTERN (emphases
mine)--would have fallen into that abstruseness" (44), although surely he
distinguishes between "Western Africanism" and "African Africanism," and
critically looks at the points of contact and confrontation between them
(see _The Invention of Africa_ 166-168). But the point is, Africans can
very well become Africanists, even if they don't have memeberships of the
kind of "exclusive club" you speak of. By the way, Africanism is not simply
a matter of "an exclusive club of scholars," but it is also a style of
discourse in the way that Said's "Orientalism" is not simply Oriental
studies at the University of London or elsewhere but is also a "style of
thought," to use Said's own phrase. So some clubs might be dissolved over
time, but the style persists. And it is with this style of
discourse/thought that I was primarily concerned.

Of course, it would be absurd to think that Said is an Orientalist just
because he writes about Orientalism. But while critiquing some versions of
Africanisms, Mudimbe ultimately comes up with a construct, with a
geneaology which, paradoxically enough, tends to forge yet another version
of Africanism.

Regards.


Azfar Hussain

##############################
AZFAR HUSSAIN
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman, Washington 99164-5020

Phones: 509-332-4405 (home)
        509-335-1803 (work)
E-mail: azfar-AT-wsu.edu
##############################

       




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