Decolonizing African knowledge : autoethnography and African epistemologies / Toyin Falola.
| Author/creator | Falola, Toyin author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2022. |
| Copyright Date | cu2022 |
| Description | xix, 513 pages : color illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Subjects |
| Series | African identities: past and present African identities: past and present. ^A1398814 |
| Contents | Part I. Introduction : 1. Prologue: My archive -- 2. Autoethnography and epistemic liberation -- Part II. History, fictions, and factions : 3. Narrative politics and cultural ideologies -- 4. Memory, magic, myth, and metaphor -- 5. A poetological narration of the nation -- 6. A poetological narration of the self -- 7. Satire and society -- 8. Narrative politics and the politics of narrative -- Part III. Visual cultures : 9. Sculpture as archive -- 10. Textiles as texts -- 11. Canvas and the archiving of ethnic reality -- 12. Yor̐uub̐ua hair art and the agency of women -- 13. Photography and ethnography -- Part IV. Conclusion : 14. Self, collective, and collection. |
| Abstract | Addressing the consequences of European slavery, colonialism, and neo-colonialism on African history, knowledge, and its institutions, this innovative book applies autoethnography to the understanding of African knowledge systems. Considering the "self" and Yoruba Being (the individual and the collective) in the context of the African decolonial project, Falola strips away Eurocentric influences and interruptions from African epistemology. Avoiding colonial archival sources, it grounds itself in alternative archives created by memory, spoken words, images, and photographs to look at the themes of politics, culture, nation, ethnicity, satire, poetics, magic, myth, metaphor, sculpture, textiles, hair, and gender. Vividly illustrated in color, it uses diverse and novel methods to access an African way of knowing. Exploring the different ways that a society understands and presents itself, this book highlights convergence, enmeshing private and public data to provide a comprehensive understanding of society, public consciousness, and cultural identity. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 482-505) and index. |
| Issued in other form | Online version: Falola, Toyin. Decolonizing African knowledge Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2022 9781009049634 |
| LCCN | 2021058071 |
| ISBN | 9781316511237 |
| ISBN | 1316511235 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| ISBN | electronic book |