| ID | 147967 |
| Title Proper | Endogenous knowledge and the development question in Africa |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | An apt analogy for speaking to Africa's experience with development is offered by the twinning of colonialism and modernization. While colonialism left behind some forms of hybridity and mimicry, the urge to decolonize—to be free from the colonizer's control in every possible way—was integral to all anti-colonial criticism after the Second World War. The politics of decolonization followed by the new states in the mid twentieth century, however, displayed an uncritical emphasis on modernization, in which development, pursued—with technology and tools of scientific progress—was a catching-up exercise with the West. As an epistemological export from the West, taking the form of science as hegemony and ideology within colonial discourse, this has not delivered material progress for Africa. The widespread concern about the intractability and magnitude of the problems facing the continent has made development a popular theme in the literature on African studies. The disappointment across various academic circles and the popular press over the dwindling prospects of development in Africa—illustrated in its food insecurity, low life expectancy and the familiar litany of its ills—has made revisiting the debates on African development both compelling and timely. Much has consequently been written on what development is or should be about in Africa. This article underlines the centrality of endogenous knowledge as the material precondition for autonomous development for Africa. |
| `In' analytical Note | Cambridge Review of International Affairs Vol. 29, No.2; Jun 2016: p.611-635 |
| Journal Source | Cambridge Review of International Affairs Vol: 29 No 2 |
| Key Words | Africa ; UNISCO ; Endogenous Knowledge |