CODESRIA : Release of the book “Beyond Disciplines: African Perspectives on Theory and Method »

3 mars 2025 LES INFOS-GEMDEV, Publications Infos Gemdev

We are pleased to announce the release of « Beyond Disciplines: African Perspectives on Theory and Method, » edited by Wanjala S. Nasong’o & Eka Ikpe.This book offers a fresh take on theoretical and methodological approaches from an African perspective, making it an essential resource for scholars, researchers, and students in the humanities and social sciences.

To what extent can we go beyond disciplinary boundaries to produce knowledge on Africa that has emancipatory and transformational power? Beyond Disciplines: African Perspectives on Theory and Method, attempts to address this question. Among the critical issues covered by contributors to the book include the limitations of Eurocentric approaches to illuminating and explaining African social contexts; the value of critical African scholarship to our understanding of the continent’s political economy of development; the descriptive, explanatory, and predictive potency of interpretivist emancipatory approaches vis-à-vis positivist developmental ones; the significance of gender power analysis for understanding women’s experiences of violent extremism; application of social science research across research communities on the critical issue of environmentalism; as well as theorising the confluence of internal displacement, weaponisation and agency of women and violent extremism. The book, authored by scholars from multiple disciplinary backgrounds based at institutions across three continents, underscores the imperative value of transformational epistemologies for Africa and demonstrates that the generation of such epistemologies is contingent upon collaborative knowledge-production projects across epistemic communities.

About the Editors

Shadrack Wanjala Nasong’o, PhD, is a Professor of International Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. His research interest lies in democratisation, identity politics, social conflict, governance and development. Nasong’o has been honoured with the Rhodes College’s Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity, and the Ali Mazrui Award for Research and Scholarly Excellence from the University of Texas at Austin.Eka Ikpe, PhD, is a Reader and Director, African Leadership Centre at King’s College London. Her themes of interest include developmentalism, industrial development and structural transformation, peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction and the economic costs of conflict and creative economies.

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We invite you to share this announcement with your network and colleagues. Together, let’s continue advancing knowledge production from Africa!