This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of Ake’s contribution to the social sciences and knowledge production in Africa. It discusses the relevance of Ake’s works for adapting the intellectual legacies of Marxist scholarship to understanding the political economy and social history of contemporary Africa. It also highlights the shortcomings noted in his orientation, and dispositions to expatriate knowledge generally, and the Western social science in particular. Given his advocacy of the need to reconstruct existing disciplinary fields following uniquely African critiques and interpretations, the study presents Ake’s works as a corrective intervention to Euro-centrism and advocates the practice of ‘non-hierarchical’ ‘cross-regional’ ‘dialogue’, in which neither the North nor the South is taken as the paradigm against which ‘the other’ is measured and pronounced inadequate

Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe

Africa Spectrum, 2008, vol. 43, issue 3, 333-351

Date: 2008
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