This paper traces the origin of Afrocentricity and describes the nature and propositions put forward by Afrocentrists that challenge the traditional Eurocentric perspective.
This paper provides answers to the questions of why, when, where, and who were the main people behind its emergence. The paper also aims at outlining the main arguments why the approach should become part of academic debates.
Afrocentricity, however, like other approaches, is not without pitfalls; for this reason the paper examines criticism levelled against it and responses thereto. Since the advent of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, information on African history has been presented from a European point of view. This viewpoint sought to justify the colonisation of Africa and the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. This mission could be achieved by glorifying slavers and colonisers whilst at the same time distorting and neglecting African contributions to world development and their opinions.
The liberation of Africa from European colonialism and the emancipation of slaves in the Americas came with calls for the liberation of knowledge by some Africans who proposed that knowledge should be looked at from the point of view of Africans. This approach came to be known as Afrocentricity within academic circles. This paper offers a historical analysis of the development of the Afrocentric perspective to world knowledge.
It aims at the exposition of the term "Afrocentricity" and traces the origin of the ideology, its development, and entry into academia as another facet of looking at the world.
The paper also looks at the basic propositions put forward by Afrocentrists as opposed to the Eurocentric version that places Europeans at the centre and ignores contributions made by Africans towards world development. As a perspective, Afrocentricity is not without its critics. That is why attention is given to criticism levelled against it by both white and black opponents.
Defining the concept of Afrocentricity. The concept of Afrocentricity has been defined differently by various scholars. MK Asante defined Afrocentricity as a manner of thought and action in which the centrality of African interests, values, and perspectives predominate.
He further stated that Afrocentricity is an exercise in knowledge and a new historical perspective. As an academic exercise, Afrocentricity is defined in terms ofthe methodology, theory, and ideology that should be employed to achieve its objectives towards attaining the proposed change.
Methodologically, Afrocentricity is intended as an answer to the intellectual colonialism that undergirds and serves to validate political and economic colonialism. In regards to theory, it places African people at the centre of any analysis of African phenomena in terms of action and behaviour. It is described as a devotion to the idea that what is in the best interest of African consciousness is at the heart of ethical behaviour and seeks to cherish the idea that "Africanness" itself is an ensemble of ethics.
As an academic phenomenon, therefore, Afrocentricity serves the purpose of binding together the various elements of African and African-American studies, transforming them from an interdisciplinary assortment into a unified discipline, with ideological and intellectual goals, political purpose, and a set of commonly understood methods and theories. The roots of Afrocentricity. However, its origin and when it was first articulated cannot be established with certainty. There are several experiences that contributed to its emergence in the USA.
The experiences of slaves in the Middle Passage during the transatlantic slave trade, the denial of education to slaves once they landed in the Americas, and the double cultures of Africanisms and Americanisms stimulated Afro-American hypersensitivity to culture and its relativity. Thus, the experience of enslavement and racism in American society created the conditions for the emergence of the Afrocentric theory in the same sense that Marxist theory can be seen as a response to the economic constraints and oppression imposed on Russian peasants.
In terms of its expression, Afrocentricity is not a new movement. The historical tendency of paying attention to Africa from an African perspective can be found in the USA in the early s when it made one of its first appearances in an editorial in Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper in the USA, which alleged a relationship between Africans and the ancient Egyptians.
By tracing the existence of a magnificent ancient Egyptian civilisation in Africa, it demonstrated that European claims ofAfrican inferiority were false. Afrocentrists made the connection between black history and black education, properly construed, and black self-esteem, long before the word "self-esteem" was a "can't" word in the interpretation of African culture.
Today, a growing cluster of Afrocentric scholars at major universities in the Americas - particularly in the USA - and Africa have established several professional associations and journals. The Temple University is regarded as the leading centre of Afrocentricity, probably because Asante the proclaimed originator of the concept is based there.
Among the Temple Circle of Afrocentrists are scholars such as C. The nature of Afrocentricity. In terms of its aims and objectives, the Afrocentric movement comprises a series of activities by some concerned African and Afro-American scholars and educators directed towards achieving the particular end of ensuring that the African heritage and culture and its history and contribution to world civilisation and scholarship are reflected in the curricula on every level of academic instruction.
Advocates of the Afrocentric ideas request a reconstruction and rewriting of the whole landscape of human history in its explanation of the origin of mankind, and the origin of philosophy, science, medicine, agriculture, and architecture. The nature of Afrocentricity is a subject of debate between adherents and opponents of the movement.
In some academic circles, Afrocentricity is viewed as a theory just for the African diaspora. A common misconception related to the concrete objectives of Afrocentricity is that Afrocentrists are anti-white.
This, according to Afrocentrists, is not true and instead they maintain that it is anti-oppression. They cite this as a reason why Afrocentricity has been resentfully received by the academy as a hostile takeover rather than a movement to construct space for the study and criticism of Africans. Afrocentricity has been labelled as an antithesis, a defensive counter-move against Eurocentricity seeking to replace the European view of the world. Adherents maintain that it cannot be the antithesis of Eurocentricity and reject the notion of it seeking to replace Eurocentricity.
In the words of Pavan Varma, "the aim of Afrocentricity is not reselecting the bars in order to form new divides". Afrocentrism, which means African centeredness, does not violently confront any person or people, but is a resolute attempt to put the records right. It is about placing African people within their own historical framework.
It is a demand that the contributions of Africans in all areas of civilization be reflected in world history. Asante added weight to this contention by saying that Afrocentricity is only one of several cultural perspectives from which multiculturalism in education is derived, noting that Afrocentricity is not the opposite of Eurocentricity, nor does it seek to replace Eurocentricity. According to him, Afrocentricity is constructive primarily because it does not deny others their place.
It is based on harmonious coexistence of an endless variety of cultures. Equally, there can be no true multiculturalism without Afrocentrism. The gist of the argument by Afrocentrists is that the European view must not be imposed as universal. Just as much as Europeans, Africans are entitled to give their own perspective on the African experience, making Afrocentricity an exercise in self-knowledge.
Afrocentricity becomes valuable also for Europeans by giving them a new perspective, an ability to see from different angles and by so doing, putting them in a position to explore different views and bring new perspectives. Consequently, it becomes necessary to examine all data from the standpoint of Africans as subjects and human agents, rather than as objects in a European frame of reference.
The impression that Afrocentricity seeks to replace Eurocentricity is based on the suggestion that in dealing with ancient history, Afrocentrists have replaced white Greeks with black Egyptians. Afrocentricity does not deny other cultures standing on their own ground. The Greeks can remain firmly in control of whatever cultural legacy they bring to the world.
What Afrocentrists firmly believe is that it is important to demonstrate that ancient Egyptians must be seen in the correct light, which is that ancient Egypt was before ancient Greece as ancient Greece was before Rome.
In this way, the Greeks are left in their place and uncovered the Egyptians in theirs. The fact of the matter is that history written from the Eurocentric perspective discounts and twists the substantial evidence of African influence on Greece by overlooking ancient writings of Aetius, Strabo, Plato, Homer, Herodotus, Diogenes, Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus. The observation made by Aristotle, who reported that the Egyptians gave the world the study of geometry and mathematics, serves as more proof of the contribution of Africa to the world.
The fact that Afrocentricity originated in the USA led to the understanding by some scholars that it is a theory not for Africans in Africa but for Afro-Americans, an assertion that is rejected by Afrocentrists. For adherents of this ideology, Afrocentricity is not a theory just for the African diaspora, but for Africans at home as well.
Their argument is that Afrocentricity is primarily rooted on the continent ofAfrica where it has its largest following, which makes it a theory for Africans in Africa as well.
They support this line of argument by claiming that the heroes of the Afrocentric movement are found both in the diaspora and in Africa and are too numerous to mention.
Besides, the history of Afro-Americans and that of Africans is intertwined. As much as the history of Africans in the Americas started in Africa, the general history of Africa can never be complete without the transatlantic slave trade. In addition, there is always a sense of solidarity and constant search by some people of African origin for a common historical mission, for the elements that bind them together as a group, other than a common history of oppression.
Because Afrocentricity's emergence is concomitant with the historical and cultural context ofAfricans seeking to assert themselves, it is consistent with the interpretative life of the African person. It requires Africans to see themselves through their own perspective, because neither the Chinese nor the Europeans view phenomena from the perspective of the African, and they should not. For Asante, Afrocentricity deals with the question ofAfrican identity from the perspective ofAfrican people as centred, located, oriented, and grounded.
The primary argument here is that Africans have been dislocated and decentred and as a result see the world from the European perspective. Afrocentricity endeavours to relocate and centre the African person as an agent in human history in an effort to eliminate the illusion of the peripheries. As it is, Africans are operating in terms laid down during the European intervention of over years.
Afrocentricity thus endeavours to correct this and empower Africans to operate on their own terms, thereby making them agents or actors in their history. Unlike the Eurocentric view that tends to take an ethnocentric view posing as a universal view, Afrocentricity allows other cultures to view history from their own perspective.
What Afrocentricity does is to provide a counterforce to the prevailing intellectual colonialism that focuses discriminatorily on European influences and traditions in interpretations of African thinkers, which rigorously brackets them.
For Afrocentrists, the idea that human progress has only come from white people and not the entirety of the human race needs to be corrected. Afrocentricity maintains that any group that has no story is abandoned to others that do; that the group's members dismiss their people or themselves as not being achievers or even participants in world history.
Afrocentricity should take its place not above but alongside other cultural and historical perspectives and calls on Africans to be engaged in examining all aspects of their world. Afrocentricity does provide the theoretical basis on which knowledge should be grounded, especially in the humanities and social sciences where it can provide a new perspective. Although there are many themes that need consideration from the Afrocentric perspective, there are certain topics that need urgent attention and these are, amongst others, the contribution of ancient Africa and Africans to world civilisation, colonialism, slavery, racism, and the reinterpretation of African history.
Afrocentricity and ancient civilisations. Afrocentrists believe that the study of Africa and African people, wherever they live or have lived, necessitates distinct approaches because so much of their civilisations were intentionally destroyed or distorted by invaders, interrupted by the transatlantic slave trade, or not written or codified.
Furthermore, they generally maintain that for decades much Western scholarship was subverted by racism and cultural arrogance. In order to placate this idea, they downplayed any achievements made by ancient Africans. Arguments that ancient Egyptians were not black Africans and that the Great Zimbabwe walls and the pyramids were not built by Africans need to be challenged. Africa's influence on ancient Greece, the oldest European civilisation, was profound and significant in art, architecture, astronomy, medicine, geometry, mathematics, law, politics, and religion.
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Acholi indigenous methods for healing and re-integrating survivors of violent conflict into the community: a case of Gulu and Kitgum, Northern Uganda. Afrocentric analysis posits Afrika and Afrikans as the subject of world history; Europe and Europeans are the object. It postulates that Afrikans are the original people with original ideas and that Mother Afrika is the cradle of civilization. Six: From the Eurocentric perspective, the colour white is portrayed as positive, powerful, superior and pure, while the colour black is portrayed as negative, powerless, inferior and impure.
The reverse is true from the Afrocentric perspective. Seven: The Eurocentric world view seeks to maintain the status quo, that is, capitalist system, democratic institutions and globalization. The Afrocentric world view not only challenges the European global status quo but also seeks to destroy it through armed revolution. Eight: The ideology of the Eurocentric perspective is labeled right-wing, moderate and conservative while the Afrocentric ideological perspective is left-wing, radical, liberal and progressive.
This includes the system of government and concept of beauty. Ten: The human being is non-existent under the Eurocentric perspective. The acquisition of crass materialism, personal aggrandizement and profit maximization are the pillars of this perspective.
The Afrocentric perspective postulates that the human being is central to all existence. Human life is more important than wealth. Eleven: Eurocentric world view incorporates a Me value system while the Afrocentric world views hinges on a We value system.
Twelve: Religion is the spinal cord of the Eurocentric perspective while spirituality is the spinal cord of the Afrocentric perspective.
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