ABSTRACT:
The starting point for the proposed theme is the argument that the contact between Europe and Africa, which in earlier times was one of equal partnership, proceeded to become one of domination of Europe over Africa in all spheres of human endeavor, including the sphere of the production and distribution of knowledge. Slave trade and colonialism sealed the fate of the previously mutually beneficial exchanges. The colonial period (from the 1880s to the 1960s), for its part, had a strong, sometimes crippling, effect on the decisions, practice and creativity of the nation-states-to-be. Examples of this are galore, which show dilemmas, for instance, in the adoption of a national language and its rich metaphors and idioms; in the adoption and use of indigenous knowledge systems for technological mastery, in the adaptation of foreign innovations for local use; in the failure of school curricula to transform schools and their learners into creative entrepreneurs; in the missing links between cultural dimensions of local African discovery and a national development agenda for scientific productivity ; and indeed in the search for a formula in training of a nation’s youth in anticipatory self-reliance in adult life.
Against this backdrop, the papers under this theme would, in their own individual ways, focus on attempts that have been made or are being made to reverse these perverted patterns of contact and exchange in the quest for a promotion of equal and mutually beneficial relationships. They would propose what further is to be done, must be done or needs be done in order to reclaim and realize the old place of national autonomy and an increment in national self-reliance and development. |
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