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Resolving Epistemological Contradictions in Marxist African Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Otwin Marenin
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The Epistemological status of their own consciousness is the core contradiction of Marxist thought. This difficulty has not been acknowledged by African Marxists, nor do they explicitly admit to the varieties of radical scholarship which form their intellectual heritage, and which their own worl seeks to modify and elaborate. Marxist scholars have been unable to develop a cogent, persuasive justification for radical theorising as an alternative to positivist social science, largely because of their unwillingness to confront and affir, their own historical specificity. As argued by Bogumil Jewsiewicki:

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The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , December 1989 , pp. 641 - 669
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

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39 ibid. pp. 47–50.

40 Samoff, ‘On Class, Paradigm, and African Studies’, p. 46.

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