View the H-Africa Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-Africa's October 1998 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-Africa's October 1998 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-Africa home page.
****Introducing AFRICA FORUM**** [Peter Limb, H-Africa] It gives me great pleasure to present the first of what H-Africa hopes will be a fascinating regular new column. "AFRICA FORUM" will feature essays or commentaries by, and interviews with, notable Africanists around the world. We look forward to these contributions stimulating more dialogue, so please do not hesitate to respond to the issues raised. Our first interview, appropriately, comes direct from Africa. -------------------------------------------------------------------- [David Coplan is The Professor of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Among his many publications are: _In township tonight!: South Africa's Black city music and theatre_ (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982) and _In the time of cannibals: the word music of South Africa's Basotho migrants_ (University of Chicago Press, 1994)] Date: 6 Oct 1998 From: David Coplan, University of the Witwatersrand <031david@muse.wits.ac.za> 'AFRICAN STUDIES IN AFRICA: QUO VADIS?' email interview with David B. Coplan, The Professor of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand. 1. H-Africa: What are your impressions of the current state of African Studies? Being here in Africa certainly makes one feel left out of "African Studies". We still have African Studies in Africa in the form of institutes at some of the Universities, very notably Cape Town (which is just barely in Africa and the majority of whose residents are of mixed Euro-Asian-African descent) but not here in Johannesburg, (which is very African), but where it is now called "Institute for Advanced Social Research". Their total preoccupation with southern Africa does not deter them, as their perception, probably correct, is that the label "African Studies," whether attached to degrees or institutes, does not sell with Africans. On the other hand we have CODESRIA, who had a huge symposium here in our graduate school last month. There are those who dismiss CODESRIA as a cronies' talkshop, but I must argue quite strongly that this is no longer, if it ever was, the case. Attending a research symposium on labor studies at CODESRIA in Dakar a few years ago, I was struck by the dedication of so many young colleagues from African universities present, who were carrying on with vital research projects in their countries under almost impossible conditions and with absurdly inadequate financial support. As to talkshops, show me an organisation of this kind anywhere that isn't. 2. H-Africa: What are the defining trends in African studies at the turn of the millenium? Where are we going? Well there will always be the "colonialism/imperialism is to blame" cohort, but as this proposition takes us round in circles without actually explaining anything or, more important, moving us toward self-understanding or social progress, the more cold-eyed African Africanists in Africa are busy, quite courageously I think, trying to find out what (the hell) is happening "on the ground" and informing the rest of us intelligently about it. 3. H-Africa: To what extent are stereotypes still a major problem in the understanding of Africa? Stereotypes? I wouldn't advise any one to attempt to make a career out of deconstructing or combatting them. For one thing, like folklore, stereotypes are always somewhat true. For another, things are terrible in Africa, and everyone but the well-healed politicians who are part of the problem knows it. What we Africans (ahem) say to the outside and what we say sitting around among ourselves are very different. Among ourselves we are often more critical than the Afro-pessimists. This is a good sign; because we are the ones who need to take a hard look at our modes of action in order to ultimately find some way forward, since we are quite obviously not moving forward now, and I include South Africa in this assessment. This means perhaps that overseas Africanists should spend less in trying to somehow defend Africans against Time Magazine, and call contemporary African Studies what it simply has to be: "Phoenix Studies". Enough said.
|