Social anthropology of colonial and postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa: Changing perspectives on a changing scene

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Social anthropology of colonial and postcolonial
sub-Saharan Africa Changing perspectives on a
changing scene

• Dr. Hana Horáková
• hana.horakova_at_mup.cz

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Dominant tendencies in African studies
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Date Connection Ideological-theoretical conformation Dominating discipline
To 1860 Exploration of Africa Exoticism of travel and adventure origins of human society Literature, philosophy, travelogues
1860-1920 Colonial conquest Justified by evolutionist theory Ethnography
1920-45 Development Self-justified. Funct.anthropology describes the reality of development without questioning its principle Anthropology, applied anthropology
1945-60 Decolonization Colonial connection. Transition of anthropology to sociology suppression of scientific exoticism. Anthropology Sociology sociology of underdevelopment
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Date Connection Ideological-theoretical conformation Dominating discipline
1960-1989 Neocolonialism Discovery of illusions of independence. Radical criticism of the connection. Marxist revival. Anthropology, sociology, and political economy. Pursuit of their unification. Development studies
1989- Postcolonialism Postmodernism. Discourse on culture, identity and politics. Afropessimisme. Interdisciplinary. Postcolonial , subaltern, post development studiesanthro of colonialism, comparative political science literary critique


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• traveller?explorer?missionary?soldier
• administrator (representative of political
  power)?ethnologist/anthropologist as an organized
  professional?another scholar in social sciences
  and humanities

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Great Britain

• applied anthropology
• functionalism
• acculturation

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France

• monograph-catalogue
• total social fact
• technology
• cosmogony

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Colonial conquest 1860-1920 and the early social
anthropology

• Social evolutionist theory
• Diffusionist models
• To the Victorians, anthropology was the parlance
  and the practice of a society which gave itself
  the alibi, the good conscience and the luxury of
  a scientificity in its colonial experience.
  (Leclerc 1969)

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• Mason The uncivilized mind in the presence of
  higher phases of civilization. American
  Association, 1881
• Wilson, G.S., How shall the American savage be
  civilized?, Atlantic Monthly, 1881
• Orgeas La pathologie des races humaines et le
  problem de la colonisation, 1889

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• Kathleen Gough (1967) Anthropology is the child
  of Imperialism. Kathleen Gough (1967)
  Anthropology is the child of Imperialism.
• the connection between anthropology and a broader
  European tradition of involved exoticism
  (Davies 2003 155)

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COLONIAL ANTHROPOLOGY major changes of
theoretical paradigm

• 1920-1960 the classic period of the growth of
  social anthropology
• British social anthropology
• 1) long-term fieldwork
• 2) functionalism/structural functionalism
• 3) historical context of the British colonial
  situation in Africa
• Applied anthropology

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• Radcliffe-Brown
• Fortes African Political Systems (1940)
• Evans-Pritchard Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic
  among the Azande (1937)

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Postcolonial anthropology

• The destruction of the colonial order following
  World War II left anthropology particularly
  applied anthropologists open to attack.
  Nationalist leaders who had replaced colonial
  administrators identified anthropologists with
  the former colonial regimes, viewing
  anthropologists as agents of colonial
  repression. (Howard 1996 400)

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• Social anthropology - a tool of domination
• Rivet There is no good colonization without
  well-conducted ethnology (1937)
• Daryll Forde It must be admitted that in many
  cases the colonial governments did much for the
  Africans (1967)

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RADICALISM IN AFRICAN STUDIES OF THE 1960-1970s

• anti-capitalist anthropology
• Complicity of anthropology
• handmaiden of colonialism (Asad 1973)

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Peter C.W.Gutkind and Peter Waterman African
Social Studies. A radical reader (1977)

• Examinations of colonial anthropology by Onoge
• anthropology followed the flag into Africa
• the morbid perversion of much of Africanist
  anthropology

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Consequences of the crisis self-reflective
anthropology

• reverse report
• reflexive anthropology
• advocacy anthropology

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Contemporary anthropology of Africa five aspects
of critique-Falk Moore (1994)

• 1) issues of neocolonialism
• 2) classic economic teorie, dependency theories,
  Marxist theories, world-system teorie
• 3) the need to rewrite the existing
  anthropological literature with the aim to
  redress the past fallacies
• 4) the need to reevaluate all ethnographies
  through the discourse of power
• 5) dilemma of dialogue, translation, and
  representation

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There is more to it

• The urge of interdisciplinarity
• The relation between anthropology and development
• A new dimension between Europe and Africa (AEGIS)
  

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Interdisciplinarity

• comparative politics (Chabal, Bayart,
  Hibou,etc.), international relations, political
  theory
• Postmodernist Culture and Politics moral and
  political dimension of culture difference
• Anthropology of colonialism (Pels, Comaroffs)
• Postcolonial studies, Postdevelopmental studies,
  Subaltern studies

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Anthropology and development

• part of theory and practice of development
  agencies, voluntary organizations, international
  institutions and governments
• strategy of governance
• Anthropologists as culture-brokers

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CONCLUSION

• A new anthropology has emerged from the crisis of
  the postcolonial era
• Shifts in theoretical and methodological
  frameworks
• From structure to process
• African societies are historically contingent,
  with permeable and changing boundaries (Grinker
  and Steiner 1997 xxv)

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CONCLUSION

• Methodologically, anthropology remains in the
  forefront of the exploration of new methods of
  research in the social sciences.
• Empirically, anthropologists are today, as they
  have always been, at the centre of most
  contemporary issues of serious human concern.