African studies

African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (Pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography (ethnic groups), culture, politics, economy, languages, and religion (Islam, Christianity, traditional religions). A specialist in African studies is often referred to as an "Africanist". A key focus of the discipline is to interrogate epistemological approaches, theories and methods in traditional disciplines using a critical lens that inserts African-centred ways of knowing and references.

For Africanists, also known as communitarians, problems within Africa are thought to be caused because the real flesh-and-blood communities that comprise Africa are marginalized from public life as so many "tribes". Therefore, the solution is understood to be the need to defend culture and put Africa's age-old communities at the center of African politics. It is also argued that there is a need to "deexoticize" Africa and banalise it, rather than understand Africa as exceptionalized and exoticized.

African Studies (journal)

African Studies is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal publishing articles in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, history, sociology, politics, geography, and literary and cultural studies. It was founded in 1921 under the title Bantu Studies.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is indexed in Sociological Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, Applied Social Science Index, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Current Bibliography on African Affairs, and Abstracts in Anthropology.

References