Call for Papers: "Re-thinking and Re-imaging Nationalism in 21st
Century Africa..", 06/06
Call for Papers (deadline: 30 June 2006)
Book Project: Re-thinking and Re-imaging Nationalism in 21st Century
Africa: Ideology, Epistemology and Philosophy
Overview
As the African continent continues to search for a development paradigm,
it is important for scholars to continue to reflect on the past with a
view to informing the current debates on the African Renaissance and the
New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) that has been accepted
as the loadstar of African development initiative in this century. There
is a need for contextualized discourses on African development premised
on a clear understanding of the epistemological, philosophical and
ideological terrain of the African continent. The significance of such a
re-thinking and re-imagining of intellectual contours of the African
political past needs no justification in this era of globalization,
where the contribution of Africa to the economy of knowledge production
is underrepresented.
One of the most creative adventures in the history of modern Africa was
the nationalism that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries, as not only
a counter to imperialism and globalization but more importantly as a
broad confluence of African conceptualizations of the future, a vortex
of African visions and a challenge to the Western monopoly on what
passed for progress and development. There is desperate need for
systematic interrogation of both the colonial epistemologies and the
resistant epistemologies that were/are embedded within the broader
colonial, nationalist and post-colonial enterprises. In the wake of the
Mbembe/Zeleza debate, it is a good time to evaluate contending
perspectives on nationalism and development, and the potential and
pitfalls of various Western and anti-colonial orientations
The call is not for celebration of African nationalism, but for
re-interpretations and problematizations of Africa's recent past that
has direct resonance with the present dilemmas of African struggles for
development. The call is not for just another political reading of
African nationalism but for an archaeology of the philosophical and
epistemological underpinnings of African nationalism in its wider
context of decolonization, African socialism, Pan-Africanism,
neo-colonialism and African renaissance. The call is for disruption of
conventional understandings of African nationalism as a sociological
banality, as the inevitable end product of the impact of Western
imperialism and modernity on African societies, and of Africa as a
common concern. The idea is to capture Africa's prophetic voices via
recovery, critique and analysis of the philosophical and epistemological
contributions of such leaders as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Steve
Biko, Thomas Sankara, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Leopold Senghor, Zik (Nnamdi
Azikiwe), Patrice Lumumba, Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Mandela, Amilcar
Cabral, Frantz Fanon and many others. This venture, however, must not
remain elitist, confined to elite nationalist politics. It must open
avenues to grapple with colonial encounters in Africa as well as the
complex ambiguities of African nationalism itself. It calls for the
integration of post-colonial theoretical frameworks into the
interrogation of the African continent's recent past with a view to
understanding the murky present and the mysterious future.
The broader working framework is that of the intellectual history of
Africa. This is a history that is still lacking at the moment. It is a
call for a history of ideas. This intellectual history involves
grappling with contestations of power, ideological contests, popular
consciousness, popular social movements, 'writing back on colonialism,'
the limitations of nationalism, the roots of African crises, ideological
mixing (Marxism, communism, African socialism, capitalism), theories and
practices of African politics, constraints of political environments,
fissures and crevices of the colonial edifice, and the current impasse
in African development initiatives.
Our call for papers is generally focused on, but not limited to, the
following themes:
-
The Setting and Context of African Nationalism
-
African Nationalism as a Philosophy
-
Nationalism as an Ideology
-
Gender and Nationalism
-
African Thinkers and Nationalism
-
African Nationalist Visions of Development
-
The Struggle Against Neo-Colonialism
-
Pan-Africanism as a Global Force
-
Nationalism and Popular Culture
-
The Limits of Nationalism
-
Unity and Nationalism
-
Nationalism and the Challenge of Development
-
Nationalism and Indigenous Knowledge
-
Complexities of Decolonization
-
Liberation and the New States in Africa.
-
Nationalism and the Crisis of State Failure
-
Nationalism and Globalization.
-
Post-colonial theory and Subaltern Voices
-
Epistemology and Identity in New Nation-States
-
Colonial Versus Anti-Colonial Nationalisms
We prefer broader intellectual and theoretically informed contributions
covering various regions of Africa. Case studies are also welcome. It is
hoped that new imaginations of the African past, present and the future
will flow from this endeavour.
For submissions and for further information, please contact:
Dr. Sabelo J. Ndlovu Gatsheni
Monash University
South Africa Campus
School of Arts
Department of International Studies
Private Bag X60
Roodepoort 1725
South Africa
Tel: +27 11 950 4080
Fax: + 27 11 950 4088
Email: sgatsha@yahoo.co.uk / Sabelo.ndlovu@arts.monash.edu
Dr. Jesse Benjamin
St. Cloud State University
Human Relations and Multicultural Ed.
B118 Education Building
720 Fourth Avenue South
St. Cloud, MN 56301-4498
United States of America
Tel: (320) 308-2096
Fax: (320) 308-2932
Email: benjamin@stcloudstate.edu
Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.