Advocating for Afrocentric studies and African scholarship in the midst of the hostile western scholarship

African Discourses on the Africanization and Decolonization of Social and Human Sciences

“…this not only involves changing the demographics of universities to be more representative of South Africa’s population, but also involves changing institutional cultures so that greater prominence is given to African cultural concerns” (p. 1118). Mekoa (2018) corroborates this view arguing that “though sited in Africa, African universities are not African” (p. 89) and “African universities are still Western-centred” (p. 88). Arguably, Africa is the only continent that does not have an “African university” training its youth using an African perspective.…”

“…In his Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge (Asante, 1992), Asante has gone a step further to show that Kemet or Egypt is as old as history and should be the point of departure for teaching and learning. Carruthers (1984, as cited in Mekoa, 2018, p. 97) states that “the formulation of an African worldview is the essential beginning point for all research which is based upon the interests of African people.” The idea of combatting inequality and changing the human sciences that reduced the humanity of African people to mere property to be trafficked runs through the conception of Afrocentricity as a paradigm: this has made Asante an exponent of what might be regarded as theory of social change. However, Asante rejects the idea of Africanity as sufficient to define Afrocentricity on the grounds that the former is based on a false hypothesis.…”

“…As Itumeleng Mekoa argues, “Afrocentric studies developed out of the desire to reconstruct the African consciousness particularly in America. The advocates of Afrocentric studies argue that African-Americans have to be weaned consciously from the consumption of Euro-American culture transmitted through the American education system” (Mekoa, 2018, p. 93). Today, this line of thought is taken by students in South Africa who are in search of this center.…”

“…Mekoa further observes that “What is really missing in most universities in Africa is the link between academia and the ordinary people. Universities in Africa are not only distant in terms of their elitist social status but are culturally alien” (Mekoa, 2018, p. 91). For Mekoa, “The only relationship that universities have in Africa with ordinary people is that of researchers seeing them as objects of study.…”

The sociological dimensions of multicultural education

“…Afrocentricity is about centering a person's cultural, conceptual consciousness to inspire an analysis of experiences from an African-based, historical viewpoint (Mekoa, 2018).…”