The imperative of African perspectives on International Relations (IR)
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395716637092 |
| Published date | 01 November 2016 |
| Author | Amy Niang |
| Date | 01 November 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Special Section: Teaching Africa and International StudiesGuest Edited by Julia Gallagher (Royal Holloway, University of London) |
Politics
2016, Vol. 36(4) 453 –466
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395716637092
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The imperative of African
perspectives on International
Relations (IR)
Amy Niang
Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand – Johannesburg, Johannesburg,
South Africa
Abstract
This article argues that location, as both geography and epistemology, can be a place of innovation
in the discipline of international relations (IR). Specifically, it suggests that a re-appropriation of IR
as a product of a global history in which the Global South, in general, and Africa, in particular, played
an important role can help displace the moral and historical centrality of Western theory where it
has failed to give credence to ‘peripheral’ experience and social thought. This belief coincides with
a commonsense according to which the production of knowledge is by necessity inseparable from
the intellectual conventions, traditions and lineages of the place of production. This means that
African universities in particular have the opportunity to generate new perspectives in IR based on
the analyses of the historical events that marked the life of the continent. In this manner, thinking
and teaching IR in Africa would consist of revisiting the received truths about the evolution of the
international order and society by revising their historical underpinnings, where necessary, and by
interrogating the ‘unit-ideas’ that structure disciplinary impulses.
Keywords
Africa, international relations theory, non-Western international relations, teaching and research
Introduction
Two reductionisms characterise discussions of Africa in/and international relations (IR).
The first is a tendency to view the continent as occupying a position of marginality,
incompleteness, and incompetence. This leads to a tendency, therefore, to treat ‘Africa’ as
an example of how ideas about statehood, human rights, development and sovereignty
need to be rethought for African contexts. In other words, it assumes that Africa is resist-
ant to a proper naturalisation of these concepts. For many, Africa is a place where Marx,
democracy, and modernity have failed on account of the tyranny of cultures largely
incompatible with progress and civilisation (Jackson, 1992). They rarely see theories and
Corresponding author:
Amy Niang, Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand – Johannesburg, 1 Jan
Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.
Email: amy.niang@wits.ac.za
637092POL0010.1177/0263395716637092PoliticsNiang
research-article2016
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