We are All Postmodernists Now! African Philosophy and the Postmodern Agenda

Abstract

This essay is an attempt to critically understand the utility of the concept of postmodernism in African philosophy, and by extension the analysis of the postcolonial African predicament. Its urgency derives from the growing literature on the interpretation of the postmodern in African studies. For those I will call the “detractors”, there is a certain conceptual absurdity in the idea of postmodernism in a continent that is just grappling with the exigencies of modernity. Thus, Africa cannot be postmodern before being modern. For the “champions” of the necessity of postmodern theorizing in Africa, postmodernism offer an avenue to escape out of the cul de sac of intellectual nativism that has precluded Africa from the benefits of global open space of ideas. The essay argues that these critical interpretations emanate from an attempt to read too much into what I will call the postmodern minima. This strategy has the advantage, I contend, of giving African philosophers a leeway—beyond the mere critique of Eurocentrism—for confronting the twin problem of African identity and African development.

Keywords

• postmodern
• enlightenment
• african culture
• cultural development
• europeanism