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#HerskovitsMustFall? A Meditation on Whiteness, African Studies, and the Unfinished Business of 1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2019

Jean M. Allman
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Abstract:

Why is African Studies in North America dominated by white scholars? In this reflection piece, the 2018 president of the African Studies Association revisits the organization’s sixty-year history, exposing the processes by which white privilege was hardwired into African Studies at the organization’s founding in 1957 and then secured first by the displacement of the much older tradition of African American scholarship on Africa and second by the “recolonization American-style” of knowledge production on the continent in the postcolonial era.

Résumé:

Pourquoi les études africaines en Amérique du Nord sont-elles dominées par des chercheurs blancs ? Dans cet article de réflexion, le président de l’African Studies Association revient sur les soixante ans d’histoire de l’organisation, exposant les processus par lesquels le privilège des Blancs a été intégré dans les études africaines lors de la fondation de l’organisation en 1957, d’abord par le déplacement de la tradition beaucoup plus ancienne de l’érudition afro-américaine sur l’Afrique puis solidifié par la « recolonisation à l’américaine » de la production de connaissances sur le continent dans l’ère postcoloniale.

Resumo:

Por que motivo os Estudos Africanos são, na América do Norte, dominados por académicos brancos? Neste ensaio, o presidente da Associação de Estudos Africanos de 2018 percorre os sessenta anos de história da organização, para explicar os processos através dos quais o privilégio branco se tornou parte integrante dos Estudos Africanos aquando da fundação da Associação, em 1957, e de que modo foi depois consolidado, em primeiro lugar, através da alienação da corrente académica afro-americana dedicada a África, cujas raízes eram bem mais antigas, e, em segundo lugar, na era pós-colonial, através da produção de conhecimento de tipo “americano e recolonizador”.

Keywords

African StudiesAfrican American StudiesArea StudiesBlack Studiesdecolonizationknowledge productionMelville J. Herskovits
Type
Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 6 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2019 

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Footnotes

Editor’s note: This article is a revised version of the Presidential Address given at the 61st Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, November 2018, Atlanta, GA.

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