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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Legacies of Engagement: Scholarship Informed by Political Commitment
Author:Isaacman, AllenISNI
Year:2003
Periodical:African Studies Review
Volume:46
Issue:1
Period:April
Pages:1-41
Language:English
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:African studies
ideologies
intellectuals
biographies (form)
Bibliography/Research
Education and Oral Traditions
Politics and Government
About persons:Claude Eleme Ake (1939-1996)ISNI
Basil Davidson (1914-2010)ISNI
Francis Mading Deng (1938-)ISNI
Susan Geiger (1939-2001)ISNI
Joseph E. Harris (1929-)ISNI
Walter Rodney (1942-1980)ISNI
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/1514979
Abstract:Scholar-activists, by virtue of their critical engagement in the central issues of the day and their role in the production and dissemination of knowledge, have a unique opportunity to challenge the inherited orthodoxies in the academy and in the larger world. Within the field of African studies they have served as powerful critics and have broken new substantive, conceptual, methodological, and epistemological ground. To sustain this thesis, the present essay explores three interrelated issues. First, it assesses the concept of value-free research - a notion which is commonly used to dismiss engaged scholarship as inherently flawed. Second, it documents how a number of African American scholars, passionately committed to social justice and to an end to racial oppression, produced pioneering work on Africa well before the field of African studies gained academic legitimacy in the post-World War II era. Finally, it highlights some of the important contributions that activist scholars have made to the study of Africa. The intellectual biographies of six prominent Africanists - Claude Aké, Basil Davidson, Francis Deng, Susan Geiger, Joseph Harris and Walter Rodney - illuminate how political commitment can fuel theoretical and methodological innovation. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]
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