The question of recentring Africa: Thoughts and issues from the global South

Abstract

In this essay, which reflects on the ‘unfinished historical and humanistic project’ of decolonisation, my focus is on the question of recentring Africa. I argue that while the issues and problems in postcolonial Africa are multifarious, the need to solve them is driven by an otherwise universally shared telos—the preservation and sustenance of human well-being. I examine the question of recentring Africa, and situate it within the broader framework of the argument on epistemologies from the global South. I appropriate the dictum of the Enlightenment to highlight the centrality of agency in the quest for epistemic justice. To situate the debate within the contemporary struggle in Africa, reference is made to the recent call for the decolonisation of knowledge and the academy in South Africa. My argument in this essay is informed by the position that decolonisation is a process, and recentring Africa as its corollary involves the search for a liberating perspective within which to understand ourselves as a people in relationship with the rest of the world.