The discipline of anthropology has taken much of its credit to the field data from Africa. That's, the row material for anthropological theories, and by extension, its evolutionary development, has been derived, in large measure, from African realities.
The question, however, is "Has there been any noticeable African anthropological theory or tradition as apat the continent being the data mine of the discipline, at least in its formative years?"
This question should in no anyway suggest that Africa/is was the only place where anthropological fieldwork was done given the fact Australia, Latin America and Asia have also been similar field schools.
Kebede Kassa
Chilisa, Preece, Emagalit and others would suggest so from a postcolonial perspective on indigeneity. But I wonder if we need to conjoin the previous anthropological work in colonial times - Turner, Evans-Pritchard etc with contemporary postcolonial perspectives to synthesis anthropological theories that are sensitive to and appropriate for the cultures we are researching 'in' and hopefully 'with'.
Thank you for your reply. The question might be restated: does anthropology have an indigenous theory?
Or the question could be phrased in different ways. If anthropology has an indigenous theory this might suggest the power rests with anthropology, whereas if indigenous peoples are able to frame their own research and theoretical agendas this flows from them and informs the discipline, which may become subordinated to the peoples using it.
The question is open to interpretations in different ways. The answers, if any, coming from varied directions or strands should show the relevance of anthropology as an authentic discipline. Indigenous peoples have been the source of its existence but how much do the theories and concepts generated in the course of time represent the realities of life in the world of anthropological subjects or objects?
In another network via Linkedin, I once raised a question about whether or not anthropology was not plagued by mercenary anthropologists. There was a lengthy and heated debate there. All the participants forwarded their respective ideas, emotions and frustrations. I have stored our entire discussions there and I will post them soon on RG as an 'Unpublished" work just to see the wide-range of voices when a question arose about the integrity of a certain branch of science.
For now let's continue to reflect on this new question and see where we shall end.
Kebede
As far as I am concerned there is no distinct African anthropological theory. Most of the anthropological theories have largely come from the Western world. The field of anthropology is yet to see a theory that emanates from Africa.
I dare opening the question, if you don't mind, because i'd like to know what you mean by "anthroplogy". If what you mean is the academic discipline, i don't understand how it can be considered culturally, as i believe the university is one institution belonging to one cultural path where we all claim to the same, or near the same, logic relation to truth. Would an anthropology specifically african - which must be differentiated from regular anthropology written by writers of african nationalities - be written from a point of view different from scholar's point of view ?
All this to ask your opinion about how much the anthropo-logy should be considered as an attempt to reach universal features of human beings.. ?
Good questions! Allow me to answer your questions by other questions. Is anthropology neutral to ideologies, regions or periods? Is there no distinct American anthropology compared to European anthropology? Is Boa's anthropology identical to Spencer's or Durkheim's or Weber's? What about Marxist anthropology? Feminist anthropology? Structural-functionalist anthropology? Colonial anthropology? Do you mean that while all these are the various strands of the discipline it will be strange to ask if there is a distinct African anthropology? True, African has always been an object of anthropology but not a subject (i.e. producer of majority of anthropological knowledge though there has been a growing number of us doing one or other type of anthropological research both in Africa and in the diaspora). However, there has never been an African way of theorizing though there are plenty of reports about African ways of looking at the world in anthropology.
Come again and let's talk more on my questions of your questions.
Best regards
Kebede
Perhaps I have missed the point but it seems to me that there is something inherently African in all of us, as both the mitochondrial Eve and the Y-chromasomal Adam both originated in Africa. Would this have any bearing on the issue?
That's true and that is one aspect of looking at Africa. The other is more of social or historical. What about its contribution to world civilization? where does the so-called Western Civilization originate? There are issues such as this and the fact that we are far short of theories from an African perspective is both by design and by default. We can talk more on this next. Still come again.
Kebede
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