From Joshua Keating of FP:

Taken together, the moral of these studies could be that colonalism isn’t great for a country’s future political and economic wellbeing, but if a country is going to be colonized, they’re better off with the British than the French.

Of course, the ideal would be not to be colonised at all. Having said that, let me add this: one cannot overstate the advantage of having English and not French as the national language. It opens a wider world of possibilities. I am thinking of migration, studying abroad, outsourcing, etc.

ECAS 4 – Africa Engagements: On Whose Terms?

Panel Title:
Engaging the Francophone/Anglophone divide in researching Africa

Panel Proposers:
Ms Amy Niang, Politics and IR, University of Edinburgh Scotland
Ms Muriel Cote, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh

Like other scientific disciplines, African studies are situated within specific knowledge/institutional configurations; this is perhaps most obvious in the division between Francophone and Anglophone scholarship that spans two of the discipline’s main languages. Partly rooted in different colonial histories, this divide is manifest in linguistic differences, but also in the intellectual traditions, methodological approaches and academic networks. Previous work has described certain theoretical aspects of the divide, particularly in relation to competing Francophone and Anglophone approaches to contested paradigms such as postcolonial theory and globalisation. We would like to expand these considerations beyond the field of theory and highlight the implications in contemporary and future research practice.

Our panel invites contributions that attempt to map out specific areas of the Francophone-Anglophone polarisation in African studies as sites of knowledge production that create both opportunities and constraints for research in and on Africa. Work on the nature of the divide is encouraged as a way to capture tensions, contradictions, continuities and change that pertain to the divide. In particular we suggest that these may provide a useful lens to articulate issues about collaboration with and amongst African researchers.

To what extent does the divide contribute to entrenching disparate clusters/communities of researchers and ideas? What are the implications for the maintenance or probing of resilient dichotomies such as scientific/lay knowledge, Europe/Africa, tradition/modernity, research/policy? These questions aim to bring forth assumptions contained along the divide and to shed light on ways these frame the scope of available modes of enquiry in African studies.

Please email panel organisers for any queries. Paper proposals (no more than 400 words) are due December 22, 2010.

Muriel Cote:
M.Cote@sms.ed.ac.uk
Amy Niang:
A.Niang@sms.ed.ac.uk

It is always interesting to speak Yoruba with Beninese Yoruba speakers. I – like most Nigerian Yoruba speakers – don’t speak Yoruba without code-mixing, and the other language in the mélange is almost always English. Therefore, when I am speaking with a Beninese Yoruba speaker, I am very careful not to add in English words. But since I cannot speak straight Yoruba without having to pause to think about how to express certain thoughts in Yoruba I find myself code-mixing with French. I end up adding words like eglise, ecole, l’argent, nettoyer etc. But then, the Beninese, knowing that I am a Nigerian, (even when they know that I understand French) add English words. The confusion is always interesting; while I say l’argent they say money, and while I say Lundi they say Monday.

Where did they pick up English words? For the traders, it is simply part of their trading strategies. Most Nigerian traders who come from Nigeria to shop in the market don’t speak any word of French so the Beninese Yorubas had to learn some English words for dealing with Nigerian traders. Other Beninese Yoruba speakers told me that they picked up English words from Nigerian Yoruba movies. More power to Nollywood, non?