The Promise of Belatedness for Africa-Based Scholarship.
A regular response to scholarly submissions by Africa-based scholars to academic publications, research fellowships and funders, is that these submissions tend to be out of tune with current debates in their fields, or seemingly preoccupied with questions deemed dated in other scholarly contexts. Th...
| Published in: | African Studies Vol. 83; no. 2/3; pp. 152 - 167 |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Jun-Sep2024
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=183127460&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 183127460 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00020184 35L jtl: African Studies issn: 00020184 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun-Sep2024 vid: 83 iid: 2/3 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 183127460 10.1080/00020184.2024.2443640 ppf: 152 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.1MB tig: atl: The Promise of Belatedness for Africa-Based Scholarship. aug: au: Musila, Grace A. affil: Department of African Literature, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa su: Scholarly method Truth commissions Scholarships Africans Rumor Africa sug: subj: Africa Scholarly method Truth commissions Scholarships Africans Rumor keyword: Africa-based scholarship Belatedness double-addressivity halafu ethic multiple chronoframes ab: A regular response to scholarly submissions by Africa-based scholars to academic publications, research fellowships and funders, is that these submissions tend to be out of tune with current debates in their fields, or seemingly preoccupied with questions deemed dated in other scholarly contexts. This charge of belatedness is often framed in the diction of lack – lack of originality, lack of theoretical rigour, out of step with contemporary debates in the field of study, redundant, in a word, belated. This paper argues that this charge of belatedness is often misdiagnosed as resulting from lack of access to cutting edge scholarship from elsewhere, and therefore, addressed through temporary attempts to make these resources available. This diagnosis misrepresents deeper systemic problems in the African academy and the knowledge landscape, where academic vernaculars from the global north masquerade as normative frameworks of what quality scholarship should look like. The article proposes that rather than playing catch-up to these vernaculars-masquerading-as-norms, there is value in lingering on the specificities of African research contexts and the questions these contexts pose, as this creates scope for Africa-based scholars to produce work that turns the presumed belatedness of the questions provoked by our contexts into a generative catalyst for original scholarly interventions. I propose what I term a halafu ethic of hospitality to multiple lines of thought to demonstrate this promise of belatedness through three examples of scholarly work produced by Africa-based African scholars: Antjie Krog, Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele's There was this Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile (2009), my book, A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder (2015) and Hugo Canham's Riotous Deathscapes (2023). A halafu ethic, paired with intentionality about the double-addressivity of Africa-based scholars' research, offers a modest, yet potentially ground-shifting strategy to counter the charge of belatedness and its co-optive power. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of African Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: African Studies holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|