Legacies of Engagement: Scholarship Informed by Political Commitment

African Studies Review, Apr 2003 by Isaacman, Allen

Abstract:

Scholar-activists, by virtue of their critical engagement in the central issues of the day and their role in the production and dissemination of knowledge, have a unique opportunity to challenge the inherited orthodoxies in the academy and in the larger world in which we live. Within the field of African studies they have served as powerful critics and have broken new substantive, conceptual, methodological, and epistemological ground. To sustain this thesis, this essay explores three interrelated issues. First, it critically assesses the concept of value-free research-a notion which is commonly used to dismiss engaged scholarship as inherently flawed. Second, it documents how a number of African American scholars, passionately committed to social justice and to an end to racial oppression, produced pioneering work on Africa well before the field of African studies gained academic legitimacy in the post-World War II era. Finally, it highlights some of the critically important contributions that activist scholars have made to the study of Africa. The intellectual biographies of six prominent Africanists-Claude Aké, Basil Davidson, Francis Deng, Susan Geiger, Joseph Harris, and Walter Rodney-illuminate how political commitment can fuel theoretical and methodological innovation.

Résumé: Les chercheurs universitaires activistes, de par leur engagement critique dans les questions centrales actuelles et de par leur rôle dans la production et la dissémination du savoir, ont une occasion unique de remettre en question les orthodoxies dont nous avons hérité dans le milieu universitaire et dans le monde plus vaste dans lequel nous vivons. Dans le domaine des études africaines, ils ont servi de critiques puissants et ont produit des innovations substantielles au niveau conceptuel, méthodologique et épistémologique. Pour appuyer cette théorie, cet article examine trois questions intimement liées. Tout d'abord, nous procédons à une évaluation critique du concept de valeur-recherche libre-une notion couramment utilisée pour discréditer la recherche universitaire engagée en la considérant comme naturellement imparfaite. Ensuite, nous documentons la façon dont un nombre d'universitaires africains américains passionnément engagés dans la lutte pour la justice sociale et la fin de l'oppression raciale ont produit des travaux innovateurs sur l'Afrique bien avant que le domaine des études africaines n'obtienne sa légitimité universitaire dans la période qui a suivi la deuxième guerre mondiale. Enfin, nous soulignons une partie des contributions importantes que les universitaires et chercheurs activistes ont dédiées à l'étude de l'Afrique. La biographie intellectuelle de six importants africanistes-Claude Aké, Basil Davidson, Francis Deng, Susan Geiger, Joseph Harris et Walter Rodney-illustrent la façon dont l'engagement politique peut alimenter les innovations théoriques et méthodologiques.

Editors' note: This article is a lightly edited version of the address that Alien Isaacman, as president of the African Studies Association, delivered to a plenary session of the ASA at its 45th annual meeting, December 4-8, 2002, Washington, D.C.

While preparing this essay, I was struck by how many recent presidents of the African Studies Association have used this occasion to stress the crisis that confronts our field (Berger 1997; Greene 1999; Hyden 1996; Mikell 1999; Robinson 1994). Although their presentations differed in detail, they have highlighted an interrelated set of financial, epistemological, and political factors, which, taken together, contribute to the vulnerability of African studies.1 The inclination among influential funders, university administrators, and many senior scholars who favor a global perspective to devalue area studies has provided the intellectual rationale for downsizing African studies (Robinson 1997; Robinson forthcoming). Disagreements within the profession about who has the power to define the categories, content, and direction of future research have compounded the field's problems.2 The increased tendency to marginalize and pathologize Africa in the post-cold war era has intensified a climate of disquiet and a sense of siege among many scholars of the continent. While the magnitude of the crisis and the tensions within African studies continue to pose a very real problem and require serious and self-critical debate, I want to shift the focus of the discussion.3

In contrast to the presentations of many of my predecessors, this essay explores the significant substantive as well as theoretical impact a long lineage of scholar-activists have had on the study of Africa. This paper argues that their insurgent politics informed, energized, and sharpened their scholarly work, which in turn made them more effective social critics. They conceived of their work as advocating for a more just world and thereby they expanded their constituency and defined their enterprise as more than scholarship. By allying themselves with particular political projects, they developed a different kind of rationale for their labor. The political commitments of these scholars made their work relevant, interesting, and important to a wide audience, inside and outside the academy.