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Decolonising the social sciences in the global South
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South-driven initiatives on endogenous knowledge production owe a great debt to Claude Ake. Against this backdrop, this paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of Ake’s account of the social sciences and knowledge production in Africa. It discusses his legacy and presents him as one of the most fertile and influential voices within the social science community in the continent. Being a political scientist with an unusually broad intellectual horizon and formation, the paper discusses Ake’s production, over the last four decades, of a wide-ranging body of works, which have been quite instructive not only for their theoretical sophistication, methodological rigour and analytical acuity, but also for being remarkable works of magisterial erudition, the products of an exceptionally great mind, written with a deftly profound authority, and also constituting a significant attempt to adapt the intellectual legacies of Marxist scholarship towards understanding the political economy and social history of contemporary Africa, from a broadly critical perspective. The leit motif in this paper is to establish the specific relevance of studying Ake’s works. Through examining the epistemological bases of theory, practice and policy in his works, this paper establishes an important area within the African social science, which has been positively affected by Ake’s intellectual involvement.
Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe - Personal Name
NONE
Social Science
English
2008
1-43
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