Abstract: | There is still one part of apparently dying notions, such as 'the African personality' or 'négritude', that retains some life and influence: the assertion that African society was and is essentially 'collectivist' or 'communalist'. This idea has attracted much previous comment, but as far as known nobody has bothered to trace in detail its antecedents. The author uncovers a genealogy of collectivism which is of some interest in itself for what it reveals about the history of African and European thought and at the same time provides the opportunity for a critique of this view of African society. In his construction of the genealogy the author uses many quotations from different sources of which many are West African. The author begins with a composite picture of the alleged 'collectivism'. In conclusion he comments on the reactions to the genealogy. Ref. |