Laura J. Mitchell
Africa is a country | December 19th, 2013
“Africa is a country,” some say with irony. Or derision. Or perhaps
in sheer frustration, as those of us resident in some other part of the
world try to share our interest in the vast, variegated topographies,
cultures, and political constellations all called “Africa.” A critique
of continents, the etymology of Ifriqiya, and a European fascination
with Bilad al-Sudan are well-rehearsed elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we
all operate politically and intellectually in a world-view shaped by the
U.S. State Department and an area studies model of regions that
presents Sub-Saharan Africa as separate from the Maghreb and
Mediterranean Africa.
As Africanists, our stock-in-trade includes pushing back. As
teachers, scholars, and commentators we poke and prod at constructed
geographies, charting unities across previously demarcated sub-regions
and identifying particularities in eco-zones or communities that are
conventionally grouped with larger nations. In a post-modern landscape,
geography is admittedly malleable. But that does not make it optional. I
may be hopelessly old-school to say so: but to make sense of a place,
you still have to find it on a map.
To read more...
No comments:
Post a Comment