This book is a reflection on the mental decolonization of the postcolonialist turn in Africanist scholarship and is simultaneously a tribute to the late Professor Archibald Mafeje. A number of the... Show moreThis book is a reflection on the mental decolonization of the postcolonialist turn in Africanist scholarship and is simultaneously a tribute to the late Professor Archibald Mafeje. A number of the articles, including the Introduction by A. Olukoshi and F. Nyamnjoh, are reprinted from the Codesria Bulletin. Part 1, A staunch critique of intellectual colonialism and the pursuit of sociocultural endogeneity, also begins with a reprint of an essay on Africanity by A. Mafeje, followed by two articles commenting on the ideas expressed in it by J.O. Adesina and about Mafeje's work in the township of Langa, South Africa by J. Sharp. Part 2 is entitled Bifocality at the core of borderlinking anthropological endeavour and is composed of the reprint of a lecture delivered by R. Devisch at the University of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, commented on by W.M.J. van Binsbergen and V.Y. Mudimbe, followed by a rejoinder by R. Devisch. Part 3, Cross-pollination in African academe between cosmopolitan sciences and local knowledge, contains essays on the political, epistemological and sociocultural dimensions of knowledge by T. Okere, C.A. Njoku, R. Devisch; on the question of the uniqueness of Western science by T. Okere; and ethnomathematics, geometry and education in Africa by P. Gerdes. Part 4, Toward the local domestication of the ruling modern logic: the 'Clash of Civilisations', looks at the espousal of hip-hop and its use as a vehicle to transmit criticism in Tanzania by K. Stroeken; parody in matricentric Christian healing communes of the Sacred Spirit in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo by R. Devisch; and responses to rooted cosmopolitanism in Botswana by R. Werbner. The Epiglogue by F. Nyamnjoh recounts the work of two rival diviners in South Africa in their separate attempts to solve a strange death. [ASC Leiden abstract]. Show less
