Today we repost Haythem Guesmi’s The Gentrification of African Studies with an extended commentary from two of our editorial assistants who are doctoral students at the University of Ghana-Legon. Edwin Asa Adjei and Abena Kyere highlight the work that the African Studies Association of Africa is doing to promote African scholarship on the continent.
THE GENTRIFICATION OF AFRICAN STUDIES
by Edwin Asa Adjei and Abena Kyere
African studies as a discipline and research area has courted controversy due to its seeming duplication of so-called mainstream disciplines and fields of research. In The Gentrification of African Studies, Haythem Guesmi argues that there is gentrification of African studies because major conferences aimed at publicizing research on African peoples and cultures take place mainly in countries located in the global North. Hosting these conferences in the global North comes with challenges for scholars based in Africa such as securing visas; finding the money for travel, room and board; and challenges with analysing Africa-based research through the Western lenses of gatekeepers who decide which papers to accept. As young scholars, we too have lost opportunities to attend African Studies conferences due to insufficient funds, and onerous visa requirements. We have also had experiences of submitting papers for publication in an African Studies centred journal hosted in the Global North. The reviewers, although interested in the paper, insisted on the use of specific theories (that happened to be western) and reference to specific books (also by western authors) since the paper was full of citations by African scholars who were not known. Once those requirements were met, the paper was published. Haythem Guesmi therefore speaks for us and most scholars in the field of African Studies on the gentrification of African Studies.
That notwithstanding, the dissemination of research and findings on African peoples and cultures is taking roots on the African continent. The African Studies Association of Africa(ASAA), an Africa-based association, with goals of promoting Africa’s own specific contributions to the advancement of knowledge about the peoples and cultures of Africa and the Diaspora, is one way in which African Studies is being promoted on the continent. The association’s third biennial conference will take place at the United States International University-Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya from October 24-26, 2019. One can therefore say that the dissemination of research on African cultures and peoples is taking root on the African continent and will soon bear fruits. The All African Peoples Conference (AAPC) is another platform that has given room for the dissemination of research on the peoples and cultures of Africa. In addition, sites such as africaisacountry and abititumi are promoting research on African cultures and peoples.
While there is no doubt there is a gentrification of African studies, it is our hope that with the growth of the African Studies Association of Africa, other associations would be born out of it to enable African studies take deeper roots on the continent.
For Haythem Guesmi’s original piece, The Gentrification of African Studies, click here.