Afrocentricity

Origins

The theory of Afrocentricity was developed by Temple University professor Molefi Asante, who articulated its fullest expression in his germinal textsAfrocentricity andThe Afrocentric Idea. Although the theoretical expression of Afrocentricity is credited to Asante, the roots of the idea of Afrocentricity lie within the protean strands of Africana social and political thought, particularly with such 19th-century figures as Edward Wilmont Blyden, Martin Delany, Henry Highland Garnett, and Mary Ann Shadd and such 20th-century personalities as Aimé Césaire, Cheikh Anta Diop, Marcus Garvey, Na'im Akbar, and Maulana Karenga. Indeed, it was none other than the intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois who first used a variant of the term Afrocentricity—Afrocentrism —in 1961 to describe the critical principle informing hisEncyclopedia Africana project.

Definition

Afrocentricity is not a single monolithic theory of knowledge but rather constitutes a gathering space for multiple theoretical orientations—from the Africology of Asante to the Kemetic theories advanced by Jacob Carruthers—that focus on African agency, culture, history, philosophy, and society in an effort to reconstruct a global African identity and subjectivity.

In efforts to explain the raison d’être of Afrocentricity, some researchers examine the history of chattel slavery in the Americas and the processes by which Europeans marginalized and negated the agency of Africans and the histories of Africa. The narrative arc of this line of argument begins with the processes by which slave masters invalidated and deemed illegitimate the cultures, histories, and thoughts of Africa and every vestige of the African past that a captive African might have tried to hold on to and maintain in the face of captivity. The first step in this process was the removal of Africans from their physical center, the continent of Africa. Dislocated from Africa, Africans were relocated to various lands in the Americas where the process of dislocation and decentering continued. Previously grounded or centered in Africa, Africans were introduced to and forced to accept a new center. African names were replaced with European names. African spiritual practices and beliefs were dislocated, and some variants were relocated within hybridized forms of European Christianity. African languages were deemed inferior in relation to those of various European colonizers and enslavers. African values, habits, and ways of life were replaced by the “centricity” of Europe in service to, and in support of, the imperial/colonial efforts of Europe. Folkways, mores, and norms that were developed from an African center and worked for sustaining [Page 13]and advancing Africa and Africans were negated and marginalized by Europeans in order to further develop Europe and European progress. This intricate and complex process had the corollary effect of arresting Africa's development.

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