Chapter One: Introduction: Alternative Epistemologies and the Imperative of an Afrocentric Mythology
Part I: Theories and Methodologies
Chapter Two
Between Particularism and Universalism: The Promise of Epistemic Contextualism in African Epistemology
Chapter Three
The Quest for Africanizing Qualitative Inquiry: A Pathway to Methodological Innovation
Chapter Four
The State and the State of Knowledge Production in African Universities: Rethinking Identity and Curricula
Chapter Five
Afrocentricity, African Agency and Knowledge Systems
Part II: Epistemological Practices
Chapter Six
Cultural Environmentalism in Wale Ogunyemi’s Langbodo and Femi Osofisan’s Many Colours Make the Thunder-King
Chapter Seven
Security, Local Community, and the Democratic Political Culture in Africa.
Chapter Eight
The “African Prints”: Africa and Aesthetics in the Textile World
Chapter Nine
On the Search for Identity in African Architecture
Chapter Ten
Towards an Endogenous Interpretation of Polygamy and Gender Relations: A Critique of Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives
Chapter Eleven
Religion, Patriarchal Construction and Gender Complementarity in Nigeria
Chapter Twelve
Yoruba Traditional Instrumental Ensemble and Indigenous Knowledge Systems
Chapter Thirteen
Knowledge Production and Pedagogy among Islamic Scholars in Kano: A Case Study of Shaykh Tijani Usman Zangon Bare-Bari (1916-1970)
Adeshina Afolayan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso is Professor of Political Science at Babcock University, Nigeria.
Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba is Associate Professor at Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa and Visiting Professor, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
This volume investigates alternative epistemological pathways by which knowledge production in Africa can proceed. The contributors, using different intellectual dynamics, explore the existing epistemological dominance of the West—from architecture to gender discourse, from environmental management to democratic governance—and offer distinct and unique arguments that challenge the denigration of the different and differing modes of knowing that the West considered “barbaric” and “primitive.” This volume therefore constitutes a minimal gesture that further contributes to the ongoing discourse on alternative modes of knowing in Africa.