ABSTRACT
A western epistemological export that marries science and ideology in subtle ways for hegemonic purposes has dominated social science in and on Africa, and coloured perceptions of Africa even by Africans. This dominant epistemological export has not always been sensitive to new perspectives that question conventional wisdom and myopic assumptions. It has largely remained faithful to a type of social science induced and informed more by fantasies, prejudices, stereotypes, ideologies and biases about Africa and Africans. Given its remarkable ability to reproduce and market itself globally, this epistemological export has emptied academia of the power and impact of competing systems of knowledge by Africans (Mudimbe 1988: x–xi). Yet, only by re-integrating sidelined epistemologies can African studies graduate from scholarship by analogy to scholarship informed by African worldviews and historical processes (Mamdani 1996: 12–13).
