African studies
Sign in to saveAlso known as Africa Studies
field of academic study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies
In the Vinony graph
Vinony's link graph records 636 inbound references to African studies, and connects out to Africa, Arabic and epistemology.
It sits within the topics African studies and Area studies.
Vinony links it to 32 Wikipedia language editions.
Wikidata facts
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- Classification of Instructional Programs code
- 05.0101
- Commons category
- African studies
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Encyclopedic overview
Africa. An orthographic projection, 2009. African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography (ethnic groups), culture, politics, economy, languages, and religion (Islam, Christianity, traditional religions). A specialist in African studies is often referred to as an "Africanist".
Africanists argue that there is a need to "deexoticize" Africa and banalise it, rather than understand Africa as exceptionalized and exoticized. African scholars, in recent times, have focused on decolonizing African studies, and reconfiguring it to reflect the African experience through an African lens.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “African studies” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.