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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Knowledge is like an ocean: insiders, outsiders, and the academy
Author:Schipper, MinekeISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:28
Issue:4
Pages:121-141
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:identity
ethnicity
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820789
Abstract:In contemporary scholarship a reconsideration of the relation between Self and Other is taking place. The traditional Western boundaries between us and them have been opened up. Shifting subject positions replace the earlier binary opposition of Self and Other that turned out to be inadequate in including all differences. The postcolonial discussion takes place indeed on the tangent plane between insiders and outsiders, but its geographical location is situated inside the Western world, inside its academic institutions. The African academic situation does not give much cause for postcolonial celebration. On the contrary, the term postcolonial has given rise to doubts and scepticism in Africa: 'Whose postcoloniality are we talking about?' Cultural relativism with its emphasis on the respect for cultural identity is very attractive at first sight. It confirms ethnocentrism. However, some ethnocentrisms (Eurocentrism for example) are more equal than others. The author concludes that in the postcolonial discussion on universalism and hybridity, the relation with the location where shifting subject positions and fragmentations are studied and determined has been underexposed. Bibliogr.
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