Doing Precolonial African History in Postcolonial Times: A Roundtable

Abstract

This debate article aims to promote a historiographical discussion on the place of Africa in Atlantic and imperial history. The debate revolves around a set of questions: how to bring Africa to the centre of historical research? How close or how distant is the historiography that focuses on the African continent and the one that deals with the African diasporas? What has been the contribution of Portuguese scholarship to the study of precolonial African history? What is the meaning and usefulness of “Lusophone Africa” as a concept and as a field of study? What future for research on precolonial Africa in terms of constraints, opportunities, and priorities? The three historians invited to this roundtable do not provide definitive answers to these questions, but they open the way for a deeper reflection.

Keywords

• historiography
• African history
• global south
• African diasporas
• Lusophony