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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | The social sciences and knowledge production in Africa: the contribution of Claude Ake |
| Author: | Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O. |
| Year: | 2008 |
| Periodical: | Afrika Spectrum |
| Volume: | 43 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Pages: | 333-351 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Africa |
| Subjects: | social sciences social scientists postcolonialism |
| About person: | Claude Eleme Ake (1939-1996) |
| Abstract: | Claude Ake (1939-1996) is one of Africa's foremost political philosophers who worked extensively in the area of political theory. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of Claude Ake's contribution to the social sciences and knowledge production in Africa. It discusses the relevance of Ake's works for adapting the intellectual legacies of Marxist scholarship to understanding the political economy and social history of contemporary Africa. It also highlights the shortcomings noted in his orientation and his critique of expatriate knowledge in general, and Western social science in particular. The article first conceptualizes 'postcoloniality' and describes the making of postcolonial studies; then it discusses Ake's critique of Western social science and his contribution to knowledge production in Africa; and, finally, it examines his emphasis on the need for 'endogeneity' in knowledge production in Africa. Given his advocacy of the need to reconstruct existing disciplinary fields following uniquely African critiques and interpretations, the article presents Ake's works as a corrective intervention to Eurocentrism and advocates the practice of 'non-hierarchical' 'cross-regional' 'dialogue', in which neither the North nor the South is taken as the paradigm against which 'the other' is measured and pronounced inadequate. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English, German and French. [Journal abstract] |
