The idea of ‘precolonial Africa’ is vacuous and wrong | Aeon Essays
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The idea of a ‘precolonial’ Africa is theoretically vacuous, racist and plain wrong about the continent’s actual history
We should expunge, forever, the epithet ‘precolonial’ or any of its cognates from all aspects of the study of Africa and its phenomena. We should banish title phrases, names and characterisations of reality and ideas containing the word. To those who might be put off by the severity of the proposal, or its ideological-police ring, I hear you and ask only that, with just a little patience, you hear me out. It will not take much to jolt us out of the present unthinking in assuming that ‘precolonial’ or ‘traditional’, and ‘indigenous’, has any worthwhile role to play in our attempt to track,…
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