Handbook of Black Studies PDF

Sage Reference Handbook of Black Studies For the most optimal reading experience we recommend using our website. A free-to-view version of this content is available by clicking on this link, which includes an easy-to-navigate-and-s...

Sage Reference Handbook of Black Studies For the most optimal reading experience we recommend using our website. A free-to-view version of this content is available by clicking on this link, which includes an easy-to-navigate-and-search-entry, and may also include videos, embedded datasets, downloadable datasets, interactive questions, audio content, and downloadable tables and resources. Author: Molefi Kete Asante Pub. Date: 2010 Product: Sage Reference DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412982696 Keywords: Afrocentricity, African people, Africology, cultural defense, conscientization, Africa, African studies Disciplines: Race & Ethnicity, Race, Ethnicity & Migration, Black Studies, Sociology Access Date: July 8, 2024 Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks Online ISBN: 9781412982696 © 2010 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Afrocentricity: Notes on a Disciplinary Position Molefi KeteAsante Definition The Afrocentric idea is essentially about location. Because Africans have been moved off of our own cultural and historical terms, decentered by the conditions of oppression, it is important that any assessment of the African condition or analysis of African phenomena be made Afrocentrically We begin with the view that Afro- centricity is a quality of thought, perspective, and practice that perceives Africans as subjects and agents of phenomena in the context of human experience. All definitions of Afrocentricity carry with them the idea of centrality of the African experience and the idea of agency. Stating a definition does not exhaust the power of a concept; it may in fact create further difficulties unless it is explained in such a way as to elucidate the idea. Afrocentricity is about location precisely because African people have been operating from the fringes of the Eurocentric experience. Much of what we have studied in African history and culture or literature and linguistics or politics and economics has been orchestrated from the standpoint of Europe's interests. Whether it is a matter of economics, history, politics, geographical concepts, or art, Africans have been seen as peripheral to the “real” activity. This off-centeredness has affect- ed Africans as well as Whites in the United States. Thus, to speak of Afrocentricity as a radical redefinition means that we seek the reorientation of Africans to a centered position (Asante, 1998). Conscientization Afrocentricity emerged as a process of political consciousness for a people who existed on the edge of ed- ucation, art, science, economics, communication, and technology as defined by Eurocentrists. If the process was successful then the recen-tering of the people would create a new reality and open another chapter in the liberation of the minds of Africans. This was the hope of Afrocentricity when I published the book Afrocen- tricity in 1980. Of course, subsequent editions have expanded on the original vision. The aim was to strike a blow at the lack of consciousness, not simply the lack of consciousness of our oppression but the lack of Handbook of Black Studies Page 2 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. consciousness of what victories were possible. One could begin to analyze human relationships, multicultural interactions, texts, phenomena and events, and African liberation from the standpoint of orientation toward facts. The objective has always been to create space for conscious human beings who are, by virtue of their cen- teredness, committed to sanity. The idea of conscientization is at the center of Afrocentricity because this is what makes it different from Africanity One can practice African customs and mores and not be Afrocen- tric. Afrocentricity becomes conscientization related to the agency of African people. This is what Kwame Nkrumah (1964) as philosopher understood when he wrote his major work on consciousness. One cannot be Afrocentric without being a self-conscious human being. This is the key to reorientation and recentering so that the person acts as an agent rather than as a victim or dependent. The Agency Concept An agent, in our terms, must mean a human being who is capable of acting independently in his or her own best interest. Agency itself is the ability to provide the psychological and cultural resources necessary for the advancement of human freedom. In situations of “un-freedom,” oppression, racial repression, the active idea within the concept of agent assumes the primary position. What does this mean practically in the context of Afrocentricity? When one interrogates issues of place, situation, milieu, and occasion that involve African people as participants, it is important to look for the concept of agency as opposed to dis-agency. We say that one has found dis-agency in every situation where the African is dismissed as a player or actor within his or her own world. I am fundamentally committed to the view that African people must be seen as agents in economic, cultural, political, and social terms. What we can argue about in any intellectual discourse is the degree to which Africans are weak or strong agents, but there should not be any question that agency ex- ists. When agency does not exist, we have the condition of marginality and the worst form of marginality is to be marginal within your own story. Take the story of Robert Livingstone in Africa where the entire history of a region of the continent turns on what happened to a White man in the midst of hundreds of thousands of Africans. Is there no agency to any of the African personalities? Should the writing of the history of Central Africa be the writing of Livingstone's history? Are there no other ways to approach a topic such as this? Africans have been negated in the system of White racial domination. This is not mere marginalization, but the obliteration of the presence, meaning, activities, or images of the African. This is negated reality, a destruction of the spiritual and material personality of the African person. Therefore, the African must, to be conscious, Handbook of Black Studies Page 3 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. be aware of everything and seek to escape from the anomie of fringeness. This is a linguistic problem at one level, but at another level, it is a problem of dealing with the reality of constructed economic and cultural situ- ations. Afrocentricity is not religion and that is why the constituents of African values are debatable, even though they are central to Afrocentric inquiry. There are no closed systems; that is, there are no ideas that are absolutely seen as off limits for discussion and debate. Thus, when Afrocentricity is employed in analysis or criticism it opens the way for examination of all issues related to the African world. Minimum Characteristics I have argued that the minimum characteristics for an Afrocentric project should include (a) an interest in psy- chological location, (b) a commitment to finding the African subject place, (c) the defense of African cultural elements, (d) a commitment to lexical refinement, and (e) a commitment to correct the history of Africa. Danju- ma Sinue Modupe (2003) has presented the most complete list of constituents of Afrocentricity. He lists as sig- nificant aspects of the paradigm, the following: communal cognitive will, African development, consciousness matrix, psychic liberation, cultural reclamation, Africanness, African personalism, Afrocentric praxis, Afrocen- tric framework, framework integrity, cause, effect, alleviation, theoretical constructs, critical theoretical distinc- tions, structural gluon, victorious consciousness, and Afrocentric perspective (pp. 55–72). I am certain that the exploration of these constituents will lend to advancement in the science of our field. They represent the key practical ideas necessary for enlarging our discipline. In a sense, the psychological location is the primary response to discipline, and Modupe's list is intricately related to psychology. An Interest in Psychological Location This is fundamentally a perspectivist idea. The Afrocentrist argues that one's analysis is more often than not related to where a person's mind is located. For example, you can normally tell if a person is located in a culturally centered position vis-à-vis the African world by how that person relates to African information. If he or she speaks of Africans as the “other,” then you have an idea that the person views the African as other Handbook of Black Studies Page 4 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. than herself or himself. This is one way the dislocation works. Of course, if a person is not African but seeks to make an Afrocentric analysis, what you look for is the ability of the person to view African phenomena from the standpoint of Africans themselves. One who seeks to construct an Afrocentric curriculum for schools, an Afrocentric social work practice, or an Afrocentric literary text must give attention to the idea of psychological or cultural location. The use of the term location in the Afrocentric sense refers to the psychological, cultural, historical, or per- sonal place occupied by a person at a given time in history. Thus, to be in a location is to be fixed, temporarily or permanently, in a certain space. When the Afrocentrist says that it is necessary to discover one's location, it is always in reference to whether or not the person is in a centered or marginal place with regard to his or her culture. An oppressed person is dis-located when he or she operates from a location centered in the experiences of the oppressor. As Memmi (1991) understood, once the colonized is out of the picture, he “is no longer a subject of history anymore” (p. 92). The aim, of course, of the Afrocentrist is to keep the African in his own story. A Commitment to Finding the African Subject Place The Afrocentrist is concerned with discovering in every place and in all circumstances the subject position of the African person. This is particularly true in cases where the issues of significance—that is, the themes, topics, and concerns—are of African ideas and activities. Too often, the discussion of African phenomena has moved on the basis of what Europeans think, do, and say in relation to the phenomena rather than what the Africans themselves are saying and doing. Thus, the aim of the Afrocentrist is to demonstrate a powerful com- mitment to finding the African subject place in almost every event, text, and idea. This is not easy because the complications of identity of place are often discovered in the interstices between who we are and who we want to be. Although we may determine what a person is at one given moment, we may not know all that he or she can become tomorrow. Yet we must have a commitment to discovering where the African person, idea, or concept enters a text, event, or phenomena, as subject. The Defense of African Cultural Elements The Afrocentrist is concerned with all protection and defense of African cultural values and elements as part Handbook of Black Studies Page 5 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. of the human project. One cannot assume an orientation to African agency without giving respect and place to the creative dimension of the African personality. This does not mean that all things African are good or use- ful; it means that what Africans have done and what Africans do represent human creativity. All this speaks to the fact that many scholars and writers in the past dismissed African creations—whether music, dance, art, or science—as something different from the rest of humanity. This was decidedly racist, and any interpretation or analysis of African cultural elements or contributions that employed negations of African cultural elements was suspect. However, the Afrocentrist uses all linguistic, psychological, sociological, and philosophical elements to defend African cultural elements. Given the arguments against African values, habits, customs, religion, behaviors, or thought, the Afrocentrist discovers as much as possible the authentic African understanding of the elements without imposing Eurocentric or non-African interpretations. This allows the scholar to have a clear apprecia- tion of the African cultural element. A Commitment on Lexical Refinement Typically, the Afrocentrist wants to know that the language used in a text is based on the idea of Africans as subjects. This means that the person who creates the text must have some understanding of the nature of the African reality. For example, when the American or English person calls the African house a “hut,” he or she is misrepresenting reality. The Afrocentrist approaches the question of the living space of Africans from the standpoint of African reality. The idea of a house in the English language leads one to assume a modern building with kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, and recreational spaces, but in the African concept, one sees a difference in the concept. Thus, the house must be conceived of as a compound of structures where there is one structure for sleeping, one for storage, another for guests. The cooking and recreational areas are typi- cally outside the sleeping space. Therefore, it is important that any person considering African cultural ideas pay close attention to the type of language that is used. In the case of the domicile of Africans, one must first of all ask, what do Africans call the place where they sleep. This is the only way to prevent the use of negative terminology such as hut when referring to African living places. One could also extend the analysis by exam- ining the differences in understanding of the concept of house, home, and so forth in various African cultural communities. Thus, the genuine Afrocentrist seeks to rid the language of negations of African being as agents within the sphere of Africa's own history. This should not have been perceived a problem in scholarship and literature except the condition of Western education was such that all references to Africa or African people, Handbook of Black Studies Page 6 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. with the exceptions of a limited amount of progressive thinkers, sought to see Africa as helpless, second- class, inferior, nonhuman, not a part of human history, and indeed, in some instances, savage. These were Europe's contributions to the lexicon of African history. A Commitment to a New Narrative History of Africa One assumes now that the Afrocentrist is clear that one of the primary obligations of the scholar is to make an assessment of the condition of research and then to intervene in the appropriate manner. With regard to African literature, history, behavior, and economics (in fact, every subject field), the Eurocentric writers have always positioned Africa in the inferior place. This has been a deliberate falsification of the record. It is one of the greatest conspiracies in the history of the world because what was agreed on, tacitly, by writer after writer was that Africa should be marginalized in the literature and downgraded when it seemed that the literature spoke with high regard to Africa. We see this at the very root of the problem in the study of Kemet, classical Egyptian history. After Napoleon and Dominique Vivan Denon had made their conquest of Egypt, an entirely different orien- tation to African knowledge was undertaken. We were at once introduced to a new field of human inquiry, Egyptology. With Champollion's deciphering of the language of the ancient Egyptians, Europe was off to a dismantling of Egypt's history as African and of African history as being related to the Nile Valley. The only river on the African continent that was made a part of the European experience was the Nile. It was as if Europe had taken the river ounce by ounce out of the continent and dumped it onto the European landscape. All African contributions from the Nile Valley became European contributions, and Europe began the task of confusing the world about the nature of ancient Egypt. This was the biggest falsification and the one that ap- pears at any discussion on the great civilizations of antiquity. Egypt versus Greece Perhaps one of the abiding myths to sustain the European hegemony has been the Greek origin of civilization. This has now been shown to have been an exaggeration promoted by scholars intent on proving the superior- ity of Europe. Martin Bernal's (1987) book, Black Athena, shattered the idea that Greece preceded Africa, par- ticularly Egypt, in human civilization. What Bernal did in relationship to the origin of Greek civilization, Cheikh Handbook of Black Studies Page 7 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Anta Diop had done in regard to civilization in general (Diop, 1976). In other words, Diop demonstrated that the African origin of civilization was a fact, not fiction. He further showed that the ancient Egyptians were black-skinned people, using evidence from written texts, scientific experiments, and cultural analysis (Diop, 1991). What is more is that the evidence has been pouring in since the death of Diop in 1986 that he was correct in his theories (Poe, 1998). Indeed, we know now with even more certainty that the origin of the human race is on the continent of Africa. This has been demonstrated by many scholars in the past few years. Even more, biology has shown that the mitochondrial DNA of all humans can be traced to one African woman who lived about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. Thus, two arguments that would not have been made 50 years ago have now been made and have changed the way we look at the ancient world. The first argument is that the ancient Greeks owed a great deal to ancient Africans. Indeed, Plato, Homer, Diodorus, Democritus, Anaximander, Isocrates, Thales, Pythagoras, Anaxigoras, and many other Greeks studied and lived in Africa (Asante & Mazama, 2002). The other part of that argument is that the ancient Egyptians were black-skinned Africans. The proof had been given by Herodotus, Aristotle, Diodorus, and Strabo. It is not necessary to repeat that evidence in this essay. The second argument is that all humans are derived from an African source. This is the monogenetic theory of human origin that has grown in recent years because of numerous research finds. The polygenetic theo- ry, claiming that humans emerged in several locations, simultaneously has been shown to be false. It is not possible for us to establish the fact that Cheikh Anta Diop's views were almost prophetic. He understood the interconnections of Africans as well as the relationship of the rest of the world to Africa itself. Thus, rewriting this history becomes a challenge to the Afrocentric scholars who have mastered the ancient language. It is also a fact that the writing of the history of other African communities cannot be undertaken without some serious intellectual intervention of African scholars who with an Afrocentric eye will rescue the teaching of Africa from the clutches of the anthropologists whose only intent it seems to me is to develop their ethic of comparison. The idea of comparison is not necessarily the source of the Eurocentric error, although there is no doubt in my mind that it is a contributing factor. There can be no mistake about our beginnings. Classical Africa must be the starting point for all discourse on the course of African history. Kemet is directly related and linked to civilizations of Kush, Cayor, Peul, Yoruba, Handbook of Black Studies Page 8 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Akan, Congo, Zulu, and Bamun. This much we know. There is still much more that we do not know because our focus of study has only recently turned to the study of Africa for its own sake. In the past, we studied Africa as it related to Europe, not as African cultures related to each other. This was the colonial model of research. It was perfected by the French and English. If the English studied West Africa and looked at the Akan, they examined the people of Ghana as if they had no relationship to the Baule people of Cote D'Ivoire. The French did the same; they studied the Baule, but not the Asante-Akan. This has produced a kind of direct-beam re- search that does not permit the researcher to understand the interrelationships with adjacent or contiguous cultures. Afrocentricity has already begun to change this type of research, and the work of numerous scholars must be seen as contributing to a Tarharkan revival in African research. Assumptions Clearly, what I have discussed in the preceding are the minimum requirements for approaching any subject Afrocentrically I have had to make some assumptions in regard to intellectual methods, however, that are also important as we interrogate the facts of African life experiences. The first point that should be emphasized is what is meant by African. This is not an essentialist term; that is, it is not something simply based on “blood” or “genes.” It is much more than that as a construct in knowledge. An African at the basic level must be a person who has participated in the 500-year resistance to European domination of the African continent. Sometimes a person may have participated without knowing that he or she has participated, but that is where conscientization enters the picture. Only those who are conscious- ly African—given to appreciation the need to resist annihilation culturally, politically, and economically—can claim to be adequately in the arena of Afrocentricity. This is not to say that they are not Africans, just not Afrocentric. Thus, to be African is to claim a kinship with struggle and to pursue an ethic of justice against all forms of human oppression. At another level, we speak of Africans as those individuals who argue that their ancestors came to the Americas, the Antilles, and other parts of the world, from the continent of Africa during the last half millennium. There is an internal African connection as well as an external African connection. Those who live on the continent at the present moment are the internal connection, and those who live on other continents are the external connection. Whites on the continent of Africa who have never participated in the resistance to White oppression, domination, or hegemony are indeed non-Africans. Domicility alone does Handbook of Black Studies Page 9 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. not make one an African. In the end, we argue that consciousness, not biology, determines our approach to data. This is the place from which all analysis proceeds. Now the Afrocentrist argues that there can be no antiplace. One is either involved from one place or another; one cannot be in a place that does not exist because all places are positions. I cannot conceive of an antiper- spective because whatever I perceive of, I am using a place, a position, even if it is called an antiperspective perspective. In a powerful ethic of subject-to-subject communication and interaction, the Afrocentrist establishes the African agency as comparable to that of any other human in the world. If you want to talk science, we will talk science. If you want to talk astronomy, we will talk astronomy. Whatever the condition and the situation with human beings in any part of the world, African people must be seen as players on the world stage, not as sec- ond citizens. The 500 years of European domination may have crippled our march toward human progress, but those years could not erase the contributions of thousands of years of history before the European set foot on the African continent. We already know that there has been a tremendous attack on African scholarship over the past few years. We know also that the recent assaults have been a part of the pattern over the centuries. This aggressiveness to- ward Africans who have never enslaved, colonized, or dominated another group of people simply because of their biology is meant to prevent Africans from expressing their ethics, values, and mores in a positive way to the world. The antispiritual and pro-material views of the West have driven the world to the brink of destruction more than once. It is certain that Western technology will not save the world; in fact, it may be that technology will hasten the destruction of the world. The corruption of the earth, from the poisoning of the air and water to the killing of innocent people as collateral victims of warfare, attests to the sense of terror that sits at the door of the Western world. Humans as homo sapiens have been on the earth less than 300,000 years, hominids have been here less than 6 million, and it is not guaranteed that we will be here another 300,000, given the way the world is now going. We cannot give up the philosophical direction of the earth to those whose pattern of greed and destruction threaten our annihilation. All African experiences are worthy of study. When the Afrocentrist speaks of all African experiences, this is not a statement to be taken as representing only the patriarchal point of view. Women are not relegated to some second-tier realm as they have been in Western thought. The reason for this stems from the fact that women have been integral to all African cultures from the earliest of times. If one looks at the African rulers of antiquity, it is difficult to find any society where women have not held high positions. For example, the queens Handbook of Black Studies Page 10 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. who ruled in Kemet, Punt, and Nubia, and there were more than 40 who ruled in Nubia, represent the earliest known examples of women ruling nations. Indeed, when the rulers of Kemet and Punt held diplomatic rela- tions during the 18th dynasty, it was the first recorded interchange between women rulers. Women and men are equally important in any Afrocentric construction of knowledge. One also assumes that a homologous relationship exists between the study of African phenomena and the study of humanity. We are a part of humanity, and therefore wherever people declare themselves to be African, we are involved with the creation of human knowledge. Thus, Afrocentricity recognizes and respects the transitory nature of the self and is not antiself, but pro-personal. In fact, one may even declare that Afro- centricity is fundamentally dedicated to the collective self and is therefore proactively engaged in the creation and the re-creation of the personal on a grand scale. What African people do in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, the United States, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Congo, and France is a part of the general and collective rise to consciousness so long as what is done is toward the process of liberation. In the Afrocentrist's view, all knowledge must be emancipatory. How do you break open the prison that holds humans in mental bondage? How do you bring about justice in situations where there is only injustice? How do you create conditions of freedom when the ruling powers deny people the resources for life? These are the critical questions of a progress paradigm for liberation. Afrocentricity is not data but the orientation to data. It is how we approach phenomena. Sometimes critics argue that Afrocentrists are not presenting data on such and such a topic. Or they indicate that they do not have information on a particular subject. We respond, as Afrocentrists, that it is not so much the data that are at question many times but, rather, how people interpret the data, how they perceive what they confront, and how they analyze the African issues and values contained in the data. If you do not approach the data correctly, then you are prone to poor conclusions. Furthermore, it is clear from reading the various assaults on Afrocentrists that some people assume that because there is no evidence, for instance, that Africans in the Congo region interacted with Africans in the Nile region that it means it did not happen. We know that absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. It is necessary to say also that history is not Afrocentricity; history is a discipline within its own sphere. It pos- sesses certain attributes, assumptions, methods, and objectives that may or may not be consistent with those of Afrocentricity. The debates over historiography that have arisen in history over the last few years have been due to the increasing challenges of Afrocentric historiography (Keita, 2001). The implications of this transfor- mation are tremendous and cannot be gainsaid. It is essential for us to appreciate the new orientations to Handbook of Black Studies Page 11 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. data that are creating a robust intellectual discipline that has long left history behind. This is not to say that there should not be expressions of historical interest or attention to some of the key contributions of historical methods but that Afrocentricity has imposed new criteria on research documents, interpretation of texts, and orientation to data (Conyers, 2003). One reason Ama Mazama has called for L'Imperatif Afrocentrique is that we have been too busy rediscovering Europe to move beyond the traditional frameworks of the West. Our objective as scholars is to provide the world with the most valid and valuable analysis of African phenomena we can. What this means is that we must abandon many of the elements of historical research, particular- ly its overemphasis on written texts, and introduce new ways of ferreting out meaning in the lives of African people in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the rich suburbs of Lagos. Indeed, in Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge (1990), I proposed a series of Afrocentric responses to history that have yet to be fully examined. In the first instance, I suggested an entirely new periodization of history. Second, I dismissed the Hegelian assumption that Africa was not part of human history. Only the second challenge has been adequately taken up in subsequent discussions. I am sure that new scholars will reevaluate much of the early work done in Afrocentric theory. Already Mazama's (2003) The Afrocentric Paradigm and James Conyers's (2003) Afro- centricity and Its Critics have attempted in different directions to deepen our knowledge and appreciation of Afrocentricity. Subject Fields Several subject fields of Africology were proposed when I created the doctoral program in African American Studies at Temple University. As those fields emerged in 1990 they were social, communication, historical, cultural, political, economic, and psychological. A number of scholars have written on Africology as a way to demonstrate the power of the concept in actual analysis of texts and phenomena (Okafor, 2002). To a large extent, I was influenced by the Afrocentric philosopher, Maulana Karenga (2002), who had seen fit to discuss seven fields in his book Introduction to Black Studies, and Cheikh Anta Diop, who had also made a division of our studies, suggesting that instead of social studies we should have created family studies. In Karenga's view Black religion, Black sociology, Black politics, Black economics, Black creative production, and Black psychology constitute principal areas of inquiry. My work must be seen as a synthesis of the central ideas of conceptualization as found in Karenga and Diop works. I was concerned that the intellectual seeking a place to examine our phenomena would end up on the trash heaps of many of the older disciplines unable to secure footing in the thick mud and gluey debris of failed Handbook of Black Studies Page 12 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. analyses. Thus, Africology, which I called the Afrocentric study of African phenomena, was a discipline with several subject fields. When one sought to approach any of these fields, the best methods, based on what I had seen in the best practices of the emerging scholars as well as the best Afrocentric work of older scholars, were grouped as functional, categorical, and etymological (Asante, 1990). Each of these categories has specific methods. For example, the functional category would apply needs analysis, policy analysis, and action orientation. The categorical would require a concentration of schemes, gender, class, themes, files, and other collective ideas. Finally, the etymological category would depend a lot on language, terminology, and concept origin. These were the principal methodological approaches to re- search. What was necessary in terms of the Afrocentric idea was the ability of scholars to create methods that grew out of the responses to a centered theory. Without assumptions and presuppositions, methods become noth- ing more than rules without meaning. The Afrocentrist must not be quick to adopt Eurocentric methods that fail to appreciate African phenomena. To do so would mean that the researcher would be trapped in the con- structed mental prison of failed methods. I believe that Afrocentrists can use African cultural referents to attain a more effective analysis of realities. I am not saying that you cannot use psychological theories, sociological theories, historical analysis, or literary theory to achieve a full understanding of phenomena. What I am say- ing is that Afrocentrists must seek the African agency in all methodological constructions. We live in a world where the architecton of human investigation is constructed by concepts that have grounding in the commu- nity. I see this as a principal avenue for creating patterns of analysis based on the centered idea. Discovering centeredness is itself the primary task of the Afrocentric researcher. One must create the methods that will lead to transformations in the text, phenomena, and human lives. New Challenges One of our most challenging tasks is to debunk the notion that particularist positions are universal. Europe has paraded its own culture as the norm so long that Africans and Asians no longer understand that the European experience—whether the European Middle Ages, Shakespeare, Homer, or European concepts of beauty—are only particular aspects of the human experience, not universal, although they may have implica- tions for other cultures. What Afrocentrists must always criticize is the particular offensive that thrusts Europe Handbook of Black Studies Page 13 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. forward as the standard by which the rest of the world is judged. No particular culture can claim that ground. Afrocentricity seeks to critique all overreaching claims of particularists. The point has to be made that it is not necessary to resemble European culture in order to be civilized or human! The hegemony of Europe, whether in dress, fashion, art, culture, or economic, is really a historical moment, but it is not a universalist moment. This is not to say that with the drive for globalization that Europe and the United States of America are not seeking to enshrine a sort of hegemonic position in the world. One other challenge facing us is the discourse around the value of multiculturalism in a heterogeneous, in- dustrial nation. The debate around multiculturalism is richly textured because the issues are paramount in the modern world. If we say that multicultural simply refers to “many cultures” we have a fairly good starting place for a discussion about society. If “many cultures” should be the referent, then why is it that in a heterogeneous society we have the promotion of the hegemony of a monoculture? The greatest danger to a heterogeneous nation is the lack of openness to the multicultures that exist. The Afrocentrist contends that European culture must be viewed as being alongside, not above, the other cultures in the society. The glue that holds the so- ciety together cannot be the forced acceptance of the hegemony; it must be the reasoned acceptance of the similar values, icons, symbols, and institutions that have been developed in the best interests of all the peo- ple. Multiculturalism, therefore, is not White culture above or before any others; it is the creation of a space for all cultures. Mutuality is the hallmark of such a new political and intellectual venture because no one is left behind or out of the arena. To go into the arena of life, like the good footballer, is to discover the strengths and weaknesses of all the cultures that constitute the corporate body. Despite the many challenges confronting contemporary society, Afrocentricity establishes itself as a vigorous intellectual idea in line with the best Africological thinking. In fact, Karenga (2002) puts the situation properly when he claims that the initial and ongoing challenge for Africana studies is to continue to define itself in ways that reaf- firm its original and fundamental mission and yet reflect its capacity and commitment to continuously extend the range of its concerns to deal with new problematics and new understandings within the discipline and with an ever-changing world. (p. 346) Whatever theoretical thrust predominates in the future, I am certain that Afrocentricity will shape the long-term interests of the field. In accepting the challenge of the field to “extend the range of its concerns,” the Afro- Handbook of Black Studies Page 14 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. centrist also searches for new avenues for examining African cultural, economic, and political phenomena in places other than North America. Scholars from Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Nova Scotia, Panama, Guatemala, Guyana, Surinam, Cos- ta Rica, the Antilles, and other countries with large African populations will eventually add new facts that will expand and extend our concerns. Mazama (2003) contends that “it will come as no surprise that Afrocentricity does not embrace the idea of African cultural incompleteness” (p. 18). Clearly, Mazama's position is grounded in the belief that Africans must reconnect to the cultural matrix that helps us free ourselves from European hegemony. There is no victo- ry in accepting the idea that Africans, who after 500 years of dislocation, must remain marginalized. Mazama has advanced the idea that Africology is a discipline devoted to the renaissance of the African world. Thus, this is not a geographic specific quest; it is a worldwide challenge for people of African descent. Finally, Afrocentricity, as a dynamic generator for the Africological discipline, possibly will assist us in righting many wrongs in our analyses and help us to overcome all brutalized and crippled visions of our own liberation. Starting with our dreams of a world where the transformation of African people from off-centered conscious- ness to fully centered consciousness can occur, we shall bring a reaffirmation of our devotion and dedication to intellectual pursuits in the interest of humanity. References Asante, M. K. (1980). Afrocentricity: The theory of social change. Buffalo, NY: Amulefi. Asante, M. K. (1990). Kemet, Afrocentricity, and knowledge. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Asante, M. K. (1998). The Afrocentric idea. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Asante, M., & Mazama, A. (Eds.). (2002). Egypt v. Greece in the American academy. Chicago: African Amer- ican Images. Bernal, M. (1987). Black Athena. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Handbook of Black Studies Page 15 of 16 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Conyers, J. L. (Ed.). (2003). Afrocentricity and the academy: Essays on theory and practice. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Diop, C. A. (1976). The African origin of civilization. New York: Lawrence Hill. Diop, C. A. (1991). Civilization or barbarism. New York: Lawrence Hill. (Original work published 1981) Karenga, M. (2002). Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press. Keita, M. (2001). Race and the writing of history. New York: Oxford University Press. Mazama, A. (Ed.). (2003). The Afrocentric paradigm. Trenton, NJ: Africa Word Press. Memmi, A. (1991). The colonizer and the colonized. Boston: Beacon Press. Modupe, D. S. (2003). The Afrocentric philosophical perspective: A narrative outline. In A. Mazama (Ed.), The Afrocentric paradigm. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Nkrumah, K. (1964). Consciencism. New York: Monthly Review Press. Okafor, V. O. (2002). Toward an understanding of Africology. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Poe, R. (1998). Black spark, white fire: Did African explorers civilize Ancient Europe?Rocklin, CA: Prima. Black Studies, Social Transformation, and Education Afrocentricity African people Africology cultural defense conscientization Africa African studies https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412982696 Handbook of Black Studies Page 16 of 16