Rethinking Africa’s sociological project

• Published in: Current sociology Vol. 62; no. 4; pp. 457 - 471
• Main Author: Sitas, Ari
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-07-2014; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Africa; Africans; Canons; Development; Epistemology; Indigenous Populations; Knowledge; Markets; Modernity; Native peoples; Power; Slavery; Sociologists; Sociology; Violence; Africa; dislocation; endogenous; eurocentrisme; native question; sociological canon; pregunta nativa; modernité; new labour studies; slavery; Africain; modernidad; discontinuity; violence; development; esclavitud; modernity; canon sociológico; African; nouvelles études sur la sociologie du travail; développement; Eurocentrism; desarrollo; esclavage; nuevos estudios laborales; la « question indigène; Africano; dialogic universal; canon sociologique; eurocentrismo
• ISSN: 0011-3921; 1461-7064
• DOI: 10.1177/0011392114524505

This article explores what challenges African sociologists face in the contemporary period. It argues that one needs to go beyond references to resource constraint or the emphasis on the market or the state in order to fathom the deeper canonical and epistemological problems that keep work outside and distant from the sociological canon. Part of the challenge is that most coherent work on the continent occurred outside the confines of sociology as such. After exploring the snares involved, the article turns to the kind of work that animated sociological thought from indigenous and endogenous forms of knowledge, development and underdevelopment debates, violence and power and a growing emphasis on labour studies. It concludes in trying to consolidate the areas of consensus among African sociologists.