The Invention of Africa

A study by a Congolese philosopher and novelist, subtitled Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Using methods drawn from Michel Foucault, Mudimbe asks how the idea of Africa was produced in the texts of European travellers, missionaries, anthropologists and colonial administrators, and how African thinkers have had to work inside that body of knowledge. Gnosis, in his usage, means knowledge in the broad sense of a way of knowing, wider than academic philosophy. He traces how Western discourse made Africa the primitive other against which Europe defined itself, then examines the missionary and anthropological writings that claimed to describe African thought. He reads Placide Tempels and Alexis Kagame, the debate over ethnophilosophy and its critics such as Paulin Hountondji, and the ideas of Edward Wilmot Blyden. His conclusion is that even African discourse about Africa is shaped by concepts inherited from the West, and that an African gnosis must become aware of this.

It changed how scholars think about the idea of Africa itself, showing how knowledge and power are entangled, and it is essential for anyone studying African philosophy or postcolonial theory.