Race and African Studies
The birth of African studies in the West is an exploration of Africa, a racialized continent and subject that was explored, othered, and exploited. Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Portugal divided Africa, lumped together people who had no business being together and attempted to destroy their culture and replace them with theirs. The divide-and-rule and restructuring were done to gain control and it would not end there. Race was created to justify the colonialist’s inhumane enterprise. The enterprise would have been disrupted if area studies like the African Studies had not been created to continue to allow them to describe Africa as they would in the face of changing realities -The realities were the world wars and the fight for independence in Africa. Africa was described as inferior through the erasure of its voice and studies were carried out to exercise a different form of power where history is recorded by the powerful as though Africa did not exist bef...
