Editors: Noemi Alfieri (CHAM, NOVA FCSH-UAc; Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, U. Bayreuth), Cassandra Mark-Thiesen (Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, U. Bayreuth)
The history of knowledge production in Africa is a rising topic in the backdrop of growing awareness of the uneven globalization of intellectual thought. Focusing on the era of decolonization in Africa, a growing number of scholars are especially exploring historiography as read in periodicals such as pamphlets, magazines, journals or newspapers (Mark-Thiesen, Alfieri, Thioub, Coquerey-Vidrovitch and others). They provide important impetus for understanding the link between media and emancipation,
political democracy, freedom of choice, self-awareness, and selective association.
This special issue of Práticas da História reflects on contemporary epistemological possibilities and constraints in the writing of history. Therefore, it welcomes both contributions that dwell on African journals (scholarly, literary, artistic and ephemeral periodicals) from the 1950s to 1980s, and on the histories behind said periodicals. We look forward to contributions that explore different and contested visions of decolonization and future-making for the African continent and its diaspora. We also invite articles investigating differently situated historiographies from Africa: that use local vernacular by incorporating idiom, local imagery, myth and folklore; that relate to the present or the deep past. We also encourage more nuanced takes on the “nationalist historiography” that when viewed as a monolith was so dominant at the time. For instance, Pan-Africanism and Négritude, while revolutionizing the political assets of the continent, remained contested as intellectual projects. Finally, articles problematizing the current conceptualisations of such historiography as either “colonial”, “traditional”, “radical”, eurocentric”, “afrocentric”, “Africa-centred”, and so forth, are highly welcomed.
Finally, on methodology, and given the current wave of digitisation and digitality, the guest editors encourage reflections on processes of digital preservation and recirculation of historiography from Africa, including their implications for Africa-based and African diasporic knowledge production in the arts, literature, and scholarship. How about their impact on the expansion of the public arena and community empowerment? How are online platforms fostering a re-positioning, re-calibrating and re-thinking of these bodies of knowledge from Africa? And what potentialities lie in the future? In short, we are interested in contributions that dwell on contemporary and future receptions of the above-mentioned publications and journals in the digital sphere.
Proposals (maximum 500 words) must be sent by 30 April 2024 to praticashistoria@gmail.com . Proposals must be accompanied by a short biographical note. The acceptance or refusal of the proposal will be communicated by 15 May 2024. The articles of accepted proposals must be submitted by 31 July 2024. Contributions in both English and Portuguese are welcome.
