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Polemics and African Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2017

James H. Mittelman
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Extract

Two recent conferences illustrate on-going debates in African studies and dramatically reflect some of the major issues in African politics. Convening in Addis Ababa, December 9-19,1973, the Third International Congress of Africanists adopted a broad theme: “The Economic, Social, Political, Scientific and Cultural Development of Africa.“ The Ninth Annual Social Science Conference of the East African Universities, which met in Dar es Salaam, December 18-20, 1973, focused on “Rural Development.“

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 1974 , pp. 2 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1974 

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References

* This assessment will be made without reference to the names of those who participated most forcefully in the debates at the Addis and Dar meetings. For the purposes of the discussion which follows, competing intellectual traditions, as far as they relate to the politics of African studies, are the major topic of concern and individual personalities will not be considered.

1 UN, Security Council, document S/PV/1640.

2 UN, Security Council, document S/10540.

3 UN, General Assembly, document A/AC/109/SR869. For a helpful discussion of the UN position vis-a-vis liberation movements, also see Yassin El-Ayouty, “Legitimization of National Liberation: The United Nations and Southern Africa, ” Issue , vol. 2, no. 4 (Winter 1972), pp. 36-45.

4 Mazrui, Cf. Ali, “Tanzaphilia, ” Transition , vol. 6, no. 31 (June/July 1967), pp. 20–26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Denoon, Donald and Kuper, Adam, “Nationalist Historians in Search of a Nation: The ‘New Historiography’ in Dar es Salaam, ” African Affairs, vol. 69, no. 277 (October 1970), pp. 329–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ranger, Terence, “The ‘New Historiography’ in Dar es Salaam: An Answer, ” African Affairs , vol. 70, no. 278 (January 1971), pp. 50–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Denoon, Donald and Kuper, Adam, “The 'New Historiography’ in Dar es Salaam: A Rejoinder, ” African Affairs , vol. 70, no. 280 (July 1971), pp. 287 CrossRefGoogle Scholar-88.

5 Most notably, The African Review (a quarterly journal of politics, development, and international affairs; Cliffe, Lionel and Saul, John S. (eds.), Socialism in Tanzania: An Interdisciplinary Reader (Dar es Salaam: East African Publishing House, 1972)Google Scholar; and Tanzanian Studies No. 2, The Silent Class Struggle (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1973).

6 Sunday News (Dar es Salaam). January 6, 1974.

7 Ibid.

8 Mannheim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York, USA: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1936), p. 38.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. As indicated infra , Mannheim's attempt to establish the validity of social thought in the “classless position” of the “socially unattached intellectuals“ is a dubious proposition.

10 Tanzania Studies No. 2, S/7ent Class Struggle , p. 129.

11 Marx, Karl, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Chicago: C.H. Kerr, 1904), pp. 11 Google Scholar, 12: “It is not consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence determines consciousness.“

12 Weber, Cf. Max, “Politik als Beruf, ” in Gesammelte Politische Schriften(Munich, 1921) p. 446.Google Scholar