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Anthropology in Africa

The region of Africa has had a long history of being colonized by others in economic and cultural ways, which is why the study of anthropology in Africa is a relatively new discipline that is usually grouped with historical work. Before becoming a discipline in the region, Western anthropologists came to the area to study and conduct ethnographies pertaining to the native culture of those who inhabited the area. Anthropologists in African academia are still on looking for what anthropology means to them. While anthropology was initially used by states to gain knowledge about local cultures, it was later seen as a way to help them. After the recognition of its importance many universities and associations have institutionalized departments, journals and conferences to carry out this work. This article includes the history, development, and future of African Anthropology in different regions.

East Africa

Kenya

Map of Kenya

Anthropological study in Kenya, like many other parts of Africa, was dominated by foreign British academia. They were focused on studying the “other” and understanding them for state purposes. This era is known as the pre-independence period. There were very little local anthropologists after independence in 1963 until the 70s. The post-colonial era was filled with distrust for the subject of anthropology because of its link to previous colonizers. The East African Anthropological Association (EAAA) was founded in 2001 archaeology. This association was used to promote and unify anthropologists in East Africa and work towards a common goal. The EAAA was working to develop better programs in universities and create local opportunities for meetings within anthropological communities. It works with the Pan African Anthropological Association as well as many others in order to come up with ways to improve the country that they live in.

Growth and Development

Jomo Kenyatta

The growth and development of anthropology in Kenya was largely due to colonialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but as an actual discipline in the region, it wasn’t well developed until the 1980's. In 1938, the subject of anthropology became locally known through Jomo Kenyatta, who wrote and published Facing Mt. Kenya, which was the first time any article was published from a native’s perspective. The methodology of anthropology in Kenya is neither strictly Kenyan, nor is it strictly Euro-American, but rather a combination of the various methods between the nations. Due to the variety of methods that were being taught worldwide, as well as the education development in Kenya, it was decided to create formal training for the discipline. There’s evidence of this from their two major universities of the University of Nairobi and Moi University. The University of Nairobi tended to disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, but taught them as separate departments, similar to England’s separation of the departments; and Moi University tended to the same disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, but taught the disciplines together in the same department of Anthropology, as is taught in the U.S.

British and German Studies

The majority of British, as well as German, anthropologists dominated Kenya with their studies focusing solely on the groups of people who were considered to be distinct, or “otherly”. While some anthropologists studied these groups in order to achieve dominance over them, other anthropologists reasoned studying the communities for educational purposes before their culture no longer existed due to colonizing. Thus, causing a means for Kenya anthropologists to disassociate with colonialism because of its harsh effects on Africans and their culture. This forced the local anthropologists to rethink about socio-cultural studies, including their own discipline and how it aided in colonialism. Even Jomo Kenyatta, who had benefited from his education and studies, was struggling with the decision on whether to associate with the discipline anymore.

Louis Leakey and wife Mary

Louis Leakey aided in bringing archaeology and physical anthropology to light in Kenya. He work as a curator in the Coryndon Memorial Museum, which is an important establishment that helps to keep excavation sites accessible, such as Koobi Fora, Olorgesailie, and the Hyrax Hill, to both local and foreign archaeologists. In the 1950’s, alongside his wife, Leakey found various primate fossils, including those of Australopithecus Boisei (1959), Homo Habilis (1964), and Kenyapithecus (1967). In 1960, he established the Institute of Primate Research (IPR) which helped in comprehending human evolution and biomedical research for health challenges in Africa, such as HIV/AIDS.

Teaching and Education

Daniel Arap Moi

Since the discipline of anthropology was associated with colonialism, the nation-state of Kenya did not identify with its trajectories and could not support it. It wasn’t until Daniel Arap Moi, who succeeded Jomo as president, made culture a central means for socio-economic aspects, making anthropology slowly begin to gain popularity again among locals due to its national cultural ethos. In 1965, the University of Nairobi established its Institute for Development Studies which contained two aspects of social science and cultural divisions. The social science aspect of the department went on to develop its own Institute of Development Studies, which carried out economic development but through a multidisciplinary approach. The cultural divisions aspect used resources that informed university students, as well as regionally, from a cultural instruction perspective. In 1970, the two subjects came together and were known as the Institute of African Studies (IAS), in which students researched in African archaeology, history, social anthropology, musicology, linguistics, oral literature, traditional arts, crafts, and social systems; this institute even contributed to some of the top scholars such as musicologists P.N. Kavyu and Washington Omondi, historians H.S.K. Mwaniki and William R. Ochieng’, and writers Okot p’Bitek and Taban lo Liyong. In 1986, the IAS had established its first anthropology training program, providing courses of medical, linguistic, economic, and ecological anthropology and material culture (Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, 2006).

Anthropological Future

The future of of the discipline of anthropology consists of research projects dedicated to resolving health issues, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, so it’s not a surprise that most anthropologists in Kenya today are either medical anthropologists or those anthropologists who study medical issues. Many of these local anthropologists are sought out for help by national non-government health organizations, like United State Agency for International Development, Family Health International, Engenderhealth, PATH, Population Council, African Population and Health Research Center, African Medical Research Foundation, the World Health Organization and the Ford Foundation. Kenyan anthropologists do not conduct research for personal needs, but for needs of their nation-state and those funding agencies that they provide information to for health resolutions. In response to this upcoming need, universities are developing programs, like Anthropology in Developing Countries, Applied Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, and  Anthropology and Infectious Diseases, that educate for cultural developmental skills.

West Africa

Cameroon

Before Cameroon was split by the British and French in 1915 it was under the control of the German government since 1884. Very little Anthropological work was done until this time when the state recognized how useful knowing more about its people would be. Phyllis Kaberry and Elizabeth Chilver were two prominent researchers in West African area in the min-1900s. Kaberry, a trained anthropologist from England, studied women in a local tribe from the "grassfields" of Cameroon. She also co-wrote several books and papers on topics concerning female roles in specific african cultures. In 1973 the first institute in Cameroon with an anthropology department was established. In 1978 departments that were seen as not practical were starting to be eliminated. After closing, reopening, and hiding within other departments, Anthropology was finally on the rise in the early 1990s.

Teaching

The University of Yaoundé-I is a main institution in the area providing students with opportunities to gain degrees in Anthropology. Other Institutions of importance are the University of Ngaoundere and the University of Buea which in 1992 added anthropology departments. Both of these universities produce scholars from the local communities and they promote research that is of common interest to the area. Language being a barrier in academia until its independence, in 1960, where universities were fashioned in the European style of education systems. The University of Buea, a public university, offered the subjects in the english language which increased the number of local students that attend. Largely associated with sociology, the first person to gain a PhD in Social Anthropology from Cameroon was Paul Nkwi in 1975. In 1993, a B.A. in anthropology could be received form the University of Yaoundé.

Research

CODESRIA

A stepping-stone organization was CODESRIA, which was an organization that helped develop and promote anthropology as an institution. It facilitated the establishment of the Pan African Anthropological Association (PAAA) in the 80s. The PAAA is cooperative movement that unified Anthropologists from all over Africa. Its goal was to make anthropology known again as a useful and essential department that Africa needed. This association is holding conferences annually, starting in 1989, to advance Anthropology and find ways to solve problems for the future. Some dominant research topics in the area are witchcraft, chiefdoms, health, violence and ethno-history. The PAAA started encouraging communication of cross disciplines to benefit Africa as a whole by discovering new ways of resolving issues. A leading journal in Africa is the African Anthropology which now is know as, The African Anthropologist, allows research from all over Africa to be shared and more easily accessible.

Southern Africa

Stellenbosch/Western Cape

Map of the Western Cape with Stellenbosch highlighted

History

The history of the discipline of anthropology in South Africa comes from the result of political and ideological interpretations of the research there. In the 1920s, the South African Association for the Advancement of Science was established, and it was here that anthropology was known. Presentations were given by archeologists, linguists, anthropologists, and ethnologists; there was also a South African Journal of Science that many researchers published in as well. During the years of the 1940s to the 1990s, anthropology grew to be less popular due to the apartheid period, which in educators had strict guidelines as to what they could and couldn’t teach in the classroom, and they were not permitted to teach anything else but that particular curriculum.

Anthropological studies and research were offered at sixteen different universities, in which sociocultural anthropology and archaeology were offered within the discipline, and in another department, linguistics, African studies, and Gender studies were linked in the discipline. Instead of using the word or teaching anthropology, the universities, more specifically Stellenbosch University, taught volkekunde, which means knowledge about people, and it was first known from pre-WWII German passage that was written by Völkerkunde. This expansion of the discipline was also known as ethnology or cultural anthropology, and it was paired with aspects of the apartheid period. This caused a division between social anthropology and volkekunde, as well as Afrikaans-medium universities and English-medium universities, respectively.

Stellenbosch University and South African Relationship with the U.K. and U.S.

Stellenbosch University (an Afrikaan-medium university) had established its first anthropological department due to Werner Eiselen, who was the Permanent Secretary in the National Department of Native Affairs, as well as being a developer of the concept of apartheid, with Hendrik Verwoerd being his partner. There were then new universities that were built in the 1960s, specifically for black students, which led to the continuation of the two types of universities within the area. The professors who obtained jobs at the new universities had a background that dealt with a volkekunde style of teaching anthropology. This entire movement didn’t appeal to those who identified themselves as social anthropologists in the discipline.

Even with this division of the methods to anthropological research, there was a mutual respect and influence for social anthropological studies that were being conducted by researchers in the U.K., as well as the U.S. Most students were moving on to proceed in getting their doctoral degrees preferred to attend the University of Cambridge, due to its influence of academia through anthropologists who were South African natives, such as Meyer Fortes, Isaac Schapera, and Max Gluckman. South African anthropologists, such as Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff and Namibian-born Rob Gordon, who began their studies in their home region of South Africa, and more specifically at the Afrikaans-medium University of Stellenbosch, also had influence with the U.S. in their research.

Self-Exile and Volkekunde Conference

The University of South Africa

In the 1960s, South African anthropologists made the decision to start leaving their country for careers and research studies because of the apartheid methods, the inequality within their societies, and there was an increase in the violence that was surrounding the region. In 1967, a committee was formed in order to begin negotiating anthropological conferences that were held at the University of South Africa, which added to the separation and tension of the social anthropologists and those who studied volkekunde. Ten years later, black anthropologists started to attend these conferences, and this made the volkekunde group to initiate another new conference that was only to host research projects to those studying ethnology; this new conference was known in the Afrikaans language as Vereniging van Afrikaanse Volkekundiges, which is translated to mean Association of Afrikaans Ethnologists. This conference excluded entry to those who did not speak the original Afrikaans language of South Africa, or the regional state area, and it continued to have majority and favor until the 1980s when the social anthropologists decided to have their own conference as well.

Social Anthropology Conference

The Association for Anthropology in Southern Africa (AASA) was established in 1987 excluded membership into the group for those who believed in the apartheid concepts. Before anyone could become members of the conference, they were to sign a document, or a contract, saying that they reject any and all apartheid theories and concepts. Regardless of this new conference, the methods of volkekunde remained to be prominent in the discipline of anthropology, though during the 1980s, the anthropology department of then known Rand Afrikaans University, which was one of the newer White Afrikaans-medium universities in the area, officially denounced volkekunde as their way of research, in fact, the entire teaching department of this discipline turned their backs to apartheid concepts entirely. Later on, Stellenbosch University, which was where the first volkekunde department to be established, was closed down in the mid-1990s. A few years afterward, the discipline of social anthropology was introduced within the Department of Sociology.

The new association of Anthropology South Africa was a cause to link the two distinguished branches of volkekunde and social anthropology. Its first annual conference was in 2001. In 2004, it became one of the founding members of the World Council of Anthropology Associations in Brazil. There aren’t very many volkekundiges, or ethnologists, who have membership within the ASnA, nor do most of them attend any of the conferences that are held. A majority of those who do attend the annual conference are young, predominantly black, postgraduate anthropologists, but there are also a growing number of faculty members from the South African University anthropology programs who participate as well. Though the faculty participation numbers are growing, the overall number of memberships within the ASnA fluctuate from year to year. This is due to postgraduates, who are members only having a membership for a year or two in order to obtain their dissertations. There is also a close link between membership and conference attendance, meaning that since the conferences are held in venues that are less accessible or less desirable, this doesn’t attract many anthropologists to participate and fewer people sign up for memberships.

Topics of Research and Publication

Some of the topics of research for sociocultural anthropologists in South Africa consist of medical anthropology, mostly concerning the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the region, development anthropology, urbanism, science and natural resources, conflict, violence and policing, human rights, identity politics and belonging, and popular culture. There isn’t much attention paid to subjects, such as economic anthropology, state formation, and religion and religious movements.

Anthropologists at South African universities mostly publish to edited volumes and special theme collections in interdisciplinary and disciplinary journals in their own country, as well as internationally. One significant publication venue for South African anthropologists is the journal formerly known as the volkekunde’s Tydskrif van Suid Afrikaanse Volkekunde, which translates to Journal of South African Ethnology. The journal changed its name to Anthropology Southern Africa in 2002.

Postcolonial African Anthropology

The Future of the Discipline

Anthropologists, who studied in Africa and began their research from basic curiosities, cannot be of aid to how the discipline stays in existence. Anthropology thrived from outside and inside perspectives of the same region or aspect of culture; having a missions civilisatrice perspective divided observer and participant, instead of taking into consideration the culture within the region from the perspectives of those who have lived there. The aspect of not being able, or not wanting to, collaborate with natives from the country was due to the Malinowskian model. Researchers developed their own personal objectives and reasoning to what and who they were observing in the field. This caused an explicit division of Africa into several regions based on finding and observing the exotic “Other” from various basis of culture, race, and location. The concept of reflexivity helped anthropologists to realize that their personal needs and reasoning for research correlated with the aspect of seeing people differently instead of similarly. There was no insight from those who had inhabited the continent for centuries, and the country is not well represented. There was not a lot of support for methods that contradicted what had already been practiced and known within the discipline.

Universally, there were various debates about the methodology of the discipline in relation to folklore, co-production with aid of natives, and boundaries within the field. These aspects had not been taken into consideration when observing the region. Anthropology surviving in Africa were due to not observing Africa explicitly as scientific (racially or geographically), not seeing African identities and cultures as scientific, redefining the Malinowskian model, and making the methods of fieldwork and participant observation more flexible. Native anthropologists called for creative diversity and outsider anthropologists to observe themselves and how they contributed to the professional collaboration with those who were native to the region. This methodology or concept did not replace outside methods, but correlated the two methods together in knowledge about culture.

References

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Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, M. 2006. "Challenges and Prospects for Applied Anthropology in Kenya" in African Anthropologies: History, Critique, and Practice, ed. D. Mills, M. Babiker, and M. Ntarangwi. Dakar and London: CODESRIA and Zed Books.