TERMS & CONCEPTS

Africology and 'Africalogy' as the Frameworks for Analysis

Discussions of African agency happen in both the fields of Area Studies and Black/African-American Studies.  When that discussion centers inquiry on Africa and Africans; and seeks to improve the life chances of all Africans, Afrocentric theories arise.  While Afrocentric scholars are guided by the same paradigm, the fields within which they associate influence their inquiry and theory construction.  Scholars agreeing with the Afrocentric paradigm have given rise to the discipline of Africology within the field of Black and African-American Studies.  While this field addresses a global African cultural experience, it has geographically focused on Africans in the Americas. In contrast, the field of Area Studies focuses on the exclusive examination of life in contemporary Africa.  In each field Afrocentric scholars seek to conceptually reunite the African trans-Atlantic experience.

'Africalogy' is a term used in this study to name the disciplinary focus within the field of Area Studies, which examines the African continent and/or the populations residing within.  Its scholars are Afrocentric and/or Pan-Africanist in outlook and this distinguishes them from their field colleagues, many of which are scholars based in colonial disciplines and therefore employ tools of analysis insufficient to improve Pan-African agency.

'Africalogy' differs from Africology in that the former focuses little on African descendents who reside outside of Africa as a result of European imperial dispersion.  On the other hand, Africology is a disciplinary pinnacle within the field of Black, African-American, Afro-American, and Africana studies.  Within this field, it is distinguished by its Afrocentric core location.  Many scholars in the field however, are wedded to colonial disciplines in a similar fashion as Area Studies scholars.

Both, Africalogy and Africology, engage African-centered data and both employ a variety of positive synthetic approaches to gathering data.  Certain concepts we will encounter, however, are rooted in one or the other of these approaches.  The concept, "African world," for example, grows from the Black nationalism of Africology while the concept, "African Union," arises from the Pan-Africanism of Africalogy.  These concepts are not exclusively placed in one field or the other, but are different points of vision within the same worldview.  This site highlights the distinct points of views only when it adds to the descriptive analysis of Nkrumah's ideological and academic approaches.

'Twin Disciplinary' Approach

The method employed in this site is derived from the twin disciplines of Africology and Africalogy.  However, it utilizes tools, when they are not in contradiction with core theories, of other disciplines.  This approach is sure to become more widely used by scholars who research tributary sources of Pan-African agency.

This approach differs from the interdisciplinary approach because it is anchored by a general concern to improve African agency.  In that sense, the core disciplines act as stars around which the other approaches revolve.  The core concern remains the qualification of African agency. Satellite disciplines suggest approaches to measuring and categorizing data at best.  Values for assessment, however, will be gleaned from the discipline, of Africology and Africalogy.