Fields of Interest
The discipline of Africology has interests in other humanities, social, and even natural sciences, but largely only in what can be gained from the findings –though even some of the procedures used in order to make their findings have been found useful. Africologists are not, however, concerned with the use of the intellectual paradigms of the various fields, or methodologies in which they create and utilize, as they are eurocentric in nature and are inconsistent with an Afrocentric analysis.
On the subject of history, Africologists begin with quite a different conception of history than western Historians. Historians see history as strictly written and a concept they call pre-histor y as events occurring prior to the written record. Such a suggestion negates the emphasis various African societies place on tradition and undermines scientific attempts at understanding the past through oral tradition. Africologists understand such a historiographical method to be an Agency Reduction Formation (ARF) (Tillotson, 2011, p. 60), and not constructive for interpreting past African realities.
To further clarify, Africologists regard history as an account of past and present events, written or oral, that is non-linear, but cyclical. History for Africologists isn’t seen as a universally accepted concept, and Africologists acknowledge that the perception of history in the various regions of the world are totally dependent upon the cultural centers of those who record and present history. For African people, history exists in the present, and the “present” has already been known to occur, as in the Akan proverb, “Tete are ne nne”, or “ancient things are today” (Daaku, 1971, p. 117). In this way, the past and present can occur both simultaneously and asynchronously along a cultural perception of constant renewal. Events that may have occurred ages ago are constantly renewed in cultural memory and cultural praxis, however are, yet and still, dynamic in that the present is also a constant extension of the past. The notion of a “pre-history” is lost upon such a cosmology as a record of the past is not predicated upon written accounts. This is not to say that written record serves no or little importance in African cosmology. On the contrary, within African paradigms, juxtaposed to its authoritarian status in the West, written record is complementary to orature.
Africans view history as cyclical, dynamic events, rather than as a simple linear progression. This does not mean that African people had no philosophy of planning ahead. In fact, the civilization of Kemet (Pre-Ptolemaic Egypt) produced the world’s oldest calendar to be used for such. However, this calendar was based off of regularity in their natural setting, such as the heliacal rising of Sirius, or the character of the Nile that allowed them to know the periods of inundation, planting, and harvest (Asante, 2019, p. 50). The African philosopher John Mbiti (1969) stipulates that for African people:
Time has to be experienced in order to make sense or to become real… Since the future has not been experienced, it does not make sense; it cannot, therefore, constitute part of time, and people do not know how to think about it—unless, of course, it is something which falls within the rhythm of natural phenomena (p.17).
One such common “rhythm of natural phenomena” is that of the seasons of river inundation followed by that of planting and harvest observed and measured by stellar and/or lunar cycles. This, according to Mbiti, involves a two-dimensional philosophy of time that makes room only for immediately occurring events to be placed “in the category of inevitable or potential time. . . . The most significant consequence of this is that, according to traditional concepts, time is a two-dimensional phenomenon, with a long past, a presentand virtually no future (16).
Mbiti developed much of his theory from linguistic examinations, finding no words for “future” in the Bantu languages of the Kamba and Kikuyu people of Kenya. He makes it known that time is something that African people relate to events and phenomena, not for the sole purpose of mathematical certainty as valued in the west. There have been a number of favorable opinions and critiques of Mbiti’s African philosophy of time (Gyekye, 1987; Kalumba, 2005; English, 2006), however, what is being highlighted here is the quality of African temporal reality, particularly in regards to how temporal reality is utilized in the general maintenance of African cosmology. This is poignant due to the fact that even as Africologists we still utilize the calendar year numbering and notation systems, (i.e., B.C., A.D., B.C.E, C.E., etc.), as developed by Europe. Such consideration should remain extant throughout any Africological inquiry into the African past. I even go so far as to suggest the eventual creation or revival of a calendar and temporal notation system based on African paradigms.
The scholarship being produced by social science fields such as Anthropology and Archaeology are considered by Africologists, for much has been discovered through their inquiries. However, much like the field of History, Anthropology has caused much of African historical phenomena to be misconstrued and denigrated due to their history of racist and ethnocentric analyses. Nevertheless, archaeo-anthropological procedures such as excavation, stratigraphy, and seriation of material culture are useful to Africological inquiry about the African past.
Within the use of a method such as excavation, Africologists should also position restoration as an equal objective, as Africologists are not only concerned with digging up the African past, but also with restoring the dignity of African heritage and continuing the tradition of linking the past with the present. Anything that can be found within the material culture of the African past should be considered for restoration and/or preservation in a manner that is, to the best of our understanding, respectful to the ancestors by and for whom it was created. Further, if an Africologist disturbs the gravesite of African ancestors, whether in ruins or well preserved, it is their mission to restore the site to ensure proper veneration of those ancestors. Another primary objective in such investigation is to ensure Africologists have control over primary sources. It must be well understood that control over primary sources has far reaching implications in terms of access, interpretation, and even in the politics of citation.
A superb example of excavation and restoration that employs Africological tact is the work being done by the Asa G. Hilliard South Asasif Restoration Project (ASA Restoration Project). The project was founded by Anthony T. Browder and named in honor of the late Asa G. Hilliard who was an Afrocentric educator and authority on Kemet. The mission project has opened the door for numerous people of African descent (primarily African-Americans) to have access to primary sources of Kemetic history as they assist with the excavation and restoration of the tombs of Karakhamun and Karabasken, first priest of Amun and mayor of Waset (Pre-Ptolemaic Thebes), respectively (Browder, 2011, p. 15). As the name implies, the team has excavated, and are now in the process of restoring the tombs in order to preserve Kemetic and Kushite heritage. In Finding Karakhamun , Browder (2011) highlights the significance of their work:
The excavation and restoration of the tomb of Karakhamun affords us an opportunity to analyze primary evidence which links Kushite history and culture with that of Kemet. We have their words and their images to guide us. Just as Karakhamun and his contemporaries reached into the distant past to define themselves and preserve their names for future generations, we are in a unique position to do the same. (p. 74)
The efforts of the ASA Restoration Project provide a clear example of the possibilities for Africological inquiry utilizing the recovery methods of archaeology. Though the mission was not a venture developed and implemented by trained Africologists, it operates on Afrocentric principles, which has yielded valuable primary source information.
Other social science fields such as ethnography and sociology are likewise useful in terms of the data that has been collected but, much like their counterparts, the methodologies and analyses utilized by these fields are also quite problematic. The study of linguistics is a primary example of a field where an abundance of useful data is present but the manner in which the field applies the data is largely eurocentric. In relation to African languages, there often exists a bifurcation of culture and language. The construction of language is often depoliticized, and largely so in supposed efforts to link languages by their antecedents in order to find common origins. The study of the antecedents and the quest to find their origin are not problematic ventures, however the methods and nomenclatures used in order to do so are often exercises in agency reduction. For example, the use of the term Afroasiatic to refer to languages such as Mdw Ntr, Amharic, and Hausa further polarizes African people and culture in a rather Hegelian fashion as north-African languages become alienated from the so-called sub-Saharan.
To be sure, Afroasiatic implies an African parent language to both African and Asiatic languages under its language tree. However, the grouping of the language together has no practical use for Africologists as the languages become depoliticized or neutral in their application, if not simply erroneously classified and interpreted. In fact, historian and linguist Théophile Obenga has long argued that this language grouping is based on prejudice. In chapter one of Kwasi Wiredu’s (2004) edited volume, A Companion to African Philosophy, Obenga states:
The so-called “Afro-Asiatic family,” or “Chamito-Semitic family,” which has gained wide circulation, has no scientific foundation at all. There is no proof of an “Afro-Asiatic historical grammar.” One may recall here what Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) called “the prejudice of the prestige of the multitude,” that is to say, the supposition that what everyone says must be true. In the human sciences “scientific” circles often make claims not based on any objectively verifiable grounds but rather just on this kind of prejudice. (Obenga, 2004, p. 32)
This is especially salient considering the fact that descent languages among contemporary African ethnic groups have allowed for the reconstruction of languages as old as the Mdw Ntr (Obenga, 2004). These factors are important considerations in Africological inquiry that the field of linguistics lacks the methodology to inform.
In regards to the natural sciences , the models in which data is collected in those fields can be argued to not necessarily be eurocentric. However, it is important to note the absence of ethereal domain from scientific inquiry. Africologists find African people’s positioning of spirituality and science as non-dichotomous but symbiotic in relationship is important in the understanding and reconstruction of African historical reality. Atheistic attitudes, which are prevalent in the scientific community, do not take such an orientation seriously and, thus, often aid in the distortion of African cosmological reconstructions.