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.