Check out an article I published in 1999 in the African Studies Quarterly: The Online Journal of African Studies entitled "African Culture and Personality: Bad Social Science, Effective Social Activism, or a Call to Reinvent Ethnology?." See also my reply to a detractor of this article "African Culture and Personality: A Reply to D. A. Masolo."
In addition to its implications for African studies, this article also provokes thought regarding anthropological theory and methodology, and the power and ills of political social-mobilizing rhetoric. It also calls for a reconsideration of public notions of excessive cultural and national pride, xenophobia, and "we/them" thinking that slow the emergence of a global morality and civilization.
I am in the process of evaluating the ideas presented in the 1999 article and will publish the results in a new blog essay entitled "African Culture, Philosophy and Religion." Comments on the 1999 paper and my reply to Masolo are welcome and needed from my African and/or Africanist friends, my fellow friends of Africa, and all other readers as I reconsider my original notions and work on the new essay.
In grateful anticipation of your comments....
