Diasporan black critics and European discourse

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CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Introduction

„White critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ constitutes a body of critical discourse in which issues of cultural domination and resistance that frame relations between Africa and Europe are reflected and explored. Thus, the metacritical discussion of „white critical thought‟ within the purview of the ways in which it negotiates for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in the criticism of „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ is an undertaking in which power relations between Africa and Europe are theorised in an intellectual matrix in which Africa participates as home to „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ while Europe functions as home to „white critical thought‟. In this study, the participation of Africa and Europe as respective sources to „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ and „white critical thought‟ evokes the Afro-European entanglement in history and the various modes of relationships, ranging from coercion to cooperation, through which historical and contemporary Afro-European transcations are actualised. This research experiments with Afrocentric and Postcolonial critical rubrics in the context of the realisation that these are the two major theoretical approaches that compete for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in the development of perspectives of significance in the analysis of the European packaging of literary discourses pertaining to Africa. As an expression of European consciousness of Africa at the level of literature and its criticism, „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ stands susceptible to investigation on the basis of Afrocentricity and Postcoloniality because of the various ways in which it addresses issues to do with cultural authenticity, hybridity, multiculturalism, universalism and others that are also the subject of theorisation in both Afrocentric and Postcolonial discourse.
In anticipation of the deployment of the tenets of the above theories, this chapter explores the relationship that binds theory, history and culture and the implications that this relationship imposes in the analysis of literature and its criticism. The chapter also explains the cultural and intellectual contexts in which Afrocentricity and Postcoloniality emerge and develop as literary-critical theories, demonstrating their relevance and applicability in the meta-critical discussion of „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. It also outlines the rationale behind the selection of these theories as the appropriate critical tools for this research, explaining their strengths and weaknesses in addition to exploring the nexus and conflict of interests that obtains between them. The concurrent utilisation of Afrocentric and Postcolonial critical rubrics in this research derives from the realisation that the contest for „space,‟ „voice‟ and „authority‟ in the criticism of „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ stands likely to be divested of its complexity if it is examined from a unilateral critical standpoint. Achebe (1988: 44) equates the criticism of literature and the criticism of criticism to watching a masquerade whose energy and vitality cannot be embraced if the critic/metacritic adopts a fixed standpoint. Given that “theory, any theory, gains its sustenance from that which it offers” (Gordon, 1997: 4), the openness to more than one critical perspective in this research creates possibilities for the different theories to compete for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in the meta-discussion of „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟.

Theory, culture and history: underpinning assumptions

Any field of enquiry thrives or languishes depending on the theory or set of theories that it makes use of (Asante, 1992: 99). By their very nature, theories of literature and criticism, like cultures, are “system[s] of interrelated values, active enough to condition perception, judgment, communication and behaviour” (Mazrui, 2002: 3) and are directly implicated in the creation of “patterns for interpreting reality” (Nobles, 1985: 103). Thus, theories possess the capacity to either limit or broaden a researcher‟s critical vision. They influence the kind of questions that researchers may ask (Nobles, 1985: 104) and are inseparable from the conclusions that may be drawn in the discussion of any given topic. As Asante (1998: 27) argues, “the scientist‟s knowledge is restricted by the language he or she accepts…[because] only certain kinds of information can be acquired if we employ certain kinds of theoretical rules.” In the context of this study, three theoretical issues assume importance. First is the fact that “a [given] literature develops or stagnates, flourishes or withers, strengthens or weakens according to the theories that set the tone for its creative and critical methods and provide concepts and criteria that mark its direction for development” (Furusa, 2002: 17). Thus, the discussion of the concerns in a literary work of art is regulated by the critical tools at the disposal of the critic. Second, every literary-critical theory constitutes a cultural perspective on data. Thus, the acceptance of a particular literary-critical theory amounts to accepting “a philosophy of life” (p‟Bitek, 1986: 12) and its priorities and prejudices. Thus, the selection of a given theory resonates with ramifications in the given area of cultural studies in which the chosen theory is deployed. Third is the fact that since specific literary-critical theories are products of specific worldviews, their efficacy is susceptible to compromisation as they cross boundaries from one culture to the next, given the fact that “[k]nowledge and [cultural] technology best serve the […] environment out of which they arise” (Chiwome et al, 2000: vi). Thus, when literary-critical theories of exogenous origin are summoned to explain, for instance, concepts deemed reactionary in the culture from which they originate but progressive in another culture, a fundamental analytical disjunction is experienced. The crisis is exacerbated if endemic literary-critical theories have been marginalised. The recourse to Afrocentric and Postcolonial theories in this study speaks to the necessity for balance between endemic and exogenous approaches in the discussion of „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ and its criticism.
Considering that “literary theories come out of the study of specific literatures…[and] are a product of the study of how literature is produced, who produces it, the circumstances under which it is produced, for whom it is produced and why it is produced” (Furusa, 2002: 16), it is counter-productive to separate the development of given literary-critical theories from the cultural experiences of a given people in history. A people‟s cultural experiences in history do not only shape their attitude towards themselves and other cultural beings with whom they interact in various departments of life: they also have an impact on the order of priorities in the culture concerned. Ideally, the order of priorities in a given culture constitute the backdrop against which literary-criticism and other kinds of criticism unfold. Therefore, the disregard of an endemic hierarchy of values and order of priorities is detrimental to healthy inter-cultural dialogue. However, theories of literature and criticism do not emerge only “out of the study of specific literatures” as Furusa (2002: 16) contends. They also develop from the study of the political, economic, social and cultural experiences of a given people in history. From such studies, theorists are able to identify patterns of thought in various areas of human endeavour which are then elaborated into principles that can be used to explain patterns of creative thought, artistic representation of issues and the resolution of conflicts in a given literary episteme. Thus, there exists a close link between critical theories as cultural tools of knowledge construction on the one hand, and the experiences of a given people in various departments of life on the other. The choice of a literary-critical theory in literary-critical and metacritical studies is, therefore, akin to “support[ing] the weight of a civilization” (Fanon, 1967a: 17), given that it unfolds in a terrain fraught with intellectual contestations for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority.‟
While it should be the norm that every literary corpus should be read on the basis of theories with which it shares the same cultural and historical backdrop, endemic theories are in most cases handicapped by their hesitancy to self-interrogate. On the other hand, non-endemic theories of literature are also weighed down by the reality of their emergence in a cultural context that is different from the literary tradition that they aspire to explain. The vulnerability of either set of theories to different sets of challenges means that neither of them is capable of furnishing a comprehensive picture of phenomena without the complementation of the other. The susceptibility of both sets of theories to different sets of challenges necessitates the selection of the best critical tenets that both have to offer against the backdrop of the realisation that “no single set of ideas holds all the answers” (Mojale, 2011: 142) in the quest for knowledge. The inability to see beyond endemic critical standards is the sine qua non of intellectual in-breeding. It culminates in stunted growth (Chiwome: 1996). Thus, this study makes use of Afrocentric and Postcolonial critical rubrics with a view to achieving meta-analytical balance, given that both theories are susceptible to various kinds of limitations whose implications can be contained if recourse is made to an eclectic critical approach.

The Afrocentric perspective

In this research, Afrocentricity is employed against the backdrop of its commitment to “the centrality of African-originated ideas and values in any analysis involving African culture and behavior” (Okafor, in Robertson, 2010: 11). As a literary-critical theory, Afrocentricity is not only “a way of viewing reality that analyses phenomena using the interest[s] of African people as reference point” (Ani, 1994: 24); it is also “a quality of thought that is rooted in the cultural image and human interest[s] of African people” (Karenga, 1993: 7). Afrocentricity recognises the centrality of Africa (Asante, 1998) as “an axiological reference point of departure for the purpose of gathering, ordering and interpreting information about Africa” (Keto, 1989: 12) in fields of human exertion as diverse as politics, economics, mathematics, geography and environmental management, medicine, architecture, marriage, information management, conflict resolution, mining, agriculture, sport, tourism and recreation, child engineering, religion, literature and literary criticism. The insistence on Africa as indispensable „reference point of departure‟ in Afrocentric thought derives from the understanding that “the quality of location is essential to any analysis that involves African culture [and literature]” (Asante, 2007: 2). In this research, the attempt to unravel the ways in which white critics, for instance, contest or affirm the hegemony of European culture against which they are emerging as literary-critical scholars, is in itself an interrogation of issues to do with location. Thus, as perspective, approach and orientation, location is inseparable from the kind of research arguments that are raised and conclusions that are made. The discussion of African literature without reference to the Afrocentric approach facilitates arrival at conclusions that are out of sync with the lived experiences of the African people. Afrocentricity evinces that if African literature, as Achebe (1988: 96) argues “is man‟s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him; an aspiration to provide himself with a second handle on existence
through his imagination”, the emphasis on literary-critical standards developed in non-African cultural contexts undermines the cultivation of critical discourses that complement the efforts of the African artist in his struggle for a better world for his people. Asante (1991: 171) is much clearer:
Afrocentricity is a frame of reference wherein phenomena are viewed from the perspective of the African person. The Afrocentric approach seeks in every situation the appropriate centrality of the African person. In education, this means that teachers provide the students the opportunity to study the world and its history from an African world view…By seeing themselves as the subject rather than the objects of education – be the discipline biology, medicine, literature, or social studies – African […] students come to see themselves not merely as seekers of knowledge but as participants in it.
The installation of Africa as „centre‟ and „point of departure‟ in the Afrocentric perspective enables Africans to “view themselves as centered and central in their own […] story…as agents, actors, and participants rather than as marginals on the periphery” (Asante, 2007: 16). To the extent that it emphasises African intellectual agency in the analysis of African literature and the critical discourses that have grown around it, Afrocentricity becomes “a rigorous intellectual challenge to hegemonic ways of viewing, understanding and explaining social and human realities” (Toure, in Muwati et al, 2012: 186) as depicted in African literature and its criticism. As an idea and a perspective, Afrocentricity achieves nuanced refinement “out of the battle waged [by African people] to maintain their dignity” (Baldwin, 1995: 39) in the face of existential challenges engendered by their enslavement and colonisation in history. It is not the reverse of Eurocentrism but “a commitment to centering the study of African phenomena and events in the particular cultural voice of the composite African people” (Asante, in Conyers Jr; 1997: 76).
Afrocentricity applies emphasises on “the groundedness of observation and behaviour in [African] historical experiences, structures, concepts, paradigms, theories and methods” (Asante, in Turner; 2002: 718) against the backdrop of the “usually unconscious [African] adoption of the Western worldview and perspective and their attendant conceptual frameworks” (Mazama, 2001: 388). Thus, the installation of Africa as the indispensable point of departure in the analysis of all phenomena relating to the African experience in history is the major concern of the Afrocentric school of thought. The emphasis of the Afrocentric perspective in literary-critical discourse enables African history and culture to inform all debates on African literature. This makes it possible for African scholars to achieve agency in the development of approaches that are germane to the interests of African people. Asante (in Hudson-Weems, 2007: 35) argues that it is important for African scholars to assume subject position in the discussion of African literature and its criticism because without it, “[they] remain objects without agency, intellectual beggars without a place to stand.” The emphasis on the agency of African people in history enables Afrocentricity to dispense with the myth that posits Europe as teacher/centre/subject and Africa as pupil/periphery/object in Eurocentric cultural discourse.
The priorities of Afrocentricity are conceived and developed with a view to challenging European cultural hegemony that began in the 15th century when “Europeans […] colonised information about the world [and] … developed monopoly control over concepts and images” (Clarke, in Ani, 1994: xvi). The cultural vilification of African people would stampede them into dependency on the European conceptual framework which confuses the thinking of African people because it was not originally developed with them as equal partners but as slaves. The works of leading European philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle to whom European thinkers look up for inspiration define Africans and all non-European majority peoples of the world as objects of history.
The rise of Afrocentric critical thought is tied to the realisation that Eurocentric scholarship as it relates to African literature and its criticism “serve[s] the bureaucratic function[…] of “locking” Africans into a conceptual cocoon that at first glance appears harmless” (Asante, in Hudson Weems, 2007: 36). As an idea and a discourse, Eurocentrism misrepresents the European cultural matrix as universally indispensable, projecting Europe as the centre of the world and Africa as marginal. Late 19th century European pseudo-scientific theories of cultural diffusion in which allegedly superior cultural values were thought to trickle down from regions of supposedly high cultural development to so-called regions of cultural impoverishment would help reinforce myths of this nature. The European colonisation of Africa would also derive legitimacy from the same belief in the universal indispensability of the European cultural paradigm. The grounding of Europeans in such cultural values would enable them, in the age of slavery and colonialism, to think of themselves as magnanimous cultural big brothers and big sisters coming to the assistance of African people who were thought to be culturally and intellectually underdeveloped. The resultant cultural debacle would vitiate the self-worth of African people while simultaneously ascribing undue credit to Europeans as the sole creators of all worthwhile cultural values. Asante (1998: 23) explains that the impact of such European cultural hegemony is in the fact that it “propound[s] an exclusive view of reality […], creat[ing] a fundamental human crisis … [in which] cultures [are] arrayed against each other or even against themselves.”
Twenty-first century Africa is yet to recover from the European misrepresentation of African cultural phenomena. The situation is compounded by the fact that Europeans “have switched on their amplifiers to convey their [cultural] message to the rest of the world [b]ut they have switched off their hearing aid and turned a deaf ear to the global call for social [and cultural] justice” (Mazrui, in Laremont and Kalouche, 2002: 35). The tragedy, as Mazrui (in Laremont and Kalouche, 2002: 52) further notes, “is that of expanded communication and diminishing dialogue.” Thus, as a critical theory, Afrocentricity speaks to the development of “the consciousness for a people who existed on the edges of education, art, science, economics, communication, and technology as defined by Eurocentrists” (Asante, 2007: 32). It finds its grounding “in the intellectual and activist precursors who first suggested culture as a critical corrective to a displaced agency among Africans [who]…had been deliberately de-culturalized and made to accept the conqueror‟s codes of conduct and modes of behavior” (Asante, in Hudson-Weems, 2007: 30). It emerged from “synthesizing the best of Alexander Crummell, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Larry Neal, Carter G. Woodson, Willie Abraham, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Cheik Anta Diop, and later W. E. B. Du Bois…[to] project an innovation in criticism and interpretation” (Asante, in Hudson-Weems, 2007: 30). The key scholarly figures in the development of Afrocentricity include Achebe (1975, 1988), Asante (1980, 1989, 1998, 1999, 2007), wa Thiong‟o (1981, 1993, 1997), Ani (1981, 1994), Chinweizu (1985, 1987), p‟Bitek (1986), Williams (1987), Keto (1989, 1995), Karenga (1993, 2008), Carruthers (1999) and Mazama (2003), among others. Before them, however, “African-American scholars trained in political science, history, and sociology such as Leoranad Jeffries, Tony Martin, Vivian Gordon, Kwame Nantambu, Barbara Wheeler, James Turner, and Charshee McIntyre, greatly influenced by the works of Yosef Ben-Jochannan and John Henrik Clarke, had already begun the process of seeking a non-European way to conceptualise the African experience prior to the development of the Afrocentric theory” (Asante, in Hudson-Weems, 2007: 29). Thus, the roots of Afrocentricity are “deeply buried in the struggles of […] African-American intellectuals against the aristocratic historiography that shaped [the] [W]estern conception of the African/Black historical experience from the dawn of enslavement” (Adeleke, 2001: 22).

The Afrocentric perspective in the meta-analysis of ‘white critical thought’

As African intellectuals went up the academic ladder, they came face to face with the fact that the study of phenomena relating to Africa was never informed by African-originated critical theories (Aldridge, in Hudson-Weems, 2004: viii). The dominant approaches were largely Eurocentric and biased against the agency of African people. To the extent that they seldom acknowledged African contributions to culture and civilisation building, but readily defended slavery and colonialism as necessary if African people were to be inducted into culture and civilisation as defined by Europeans, the dominant approaches to the study of phenomena relating to Africa would constitute a cultural and intellectual quandary with mortifying implications on the African people‟s appreciation of themselves. The ideas of Hegel (1956: 93)
would assume centre-stage in the development of Eurocentric discourses on the African experience in history:
At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is not a historical part of the world; it has no movement to exhibit. Historical movements in it – that is, in the Northern part – belong to the Asiatic or European world…What we understand by Africa is the unhistorical, undeveloped spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which had to be presented here only as on the threshold of the world‟s history.
Like Hegel, Montesquieu (1949: 238) would doubt the humanity of African people, arguing that “it is impossible to suppose these creatures [Africans] to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians” while Hume (1987: 214) would emphasise the so-called indelible inferiority of African people:
The blacks, whether originally a distinct race or made distinct by time and circumstances are naturally inferior to the whites in the endowments of both the body and the mind…You may obtain anything of the Negroes by offering them strong drink; and may easily prevail with them to sell not only their children, but their wives and mistresses for a cask of brandy.
Thus, the picture that African scholars would be confronted with prior to the intellectualisation of the Afrocentric idea projected African people as “passive and depersonalised objects of history rather than subjects capable of assuming command of their destiny” (Harries, 1994: xiii). The misrepresentation of African people would constitute part of the „equation‟ of value that would be „balanced‟ through the celebration of Europeans as the only inventors, creators and movers in the historical process, epitomising refinement, culture and civilisation. Europe would emerge in such discourses as teacher and Africa as pupil. Thus, the significance of Afrocentricity in the study of African literature derives from the fact that “knowledge about Africans inside and outside Africa has been greatly distorted by reliance on frameworks of analysis, interpretation and perspectives premised on a European centre, a European perspective and European preferences” (Keto, 1995: viii). The distortion of knowledge on data relating to Africa in the Eurocentric paradigm is inspired by the sordid history of Europeans in their transactions with Africans. Frobenius‟ (1936:56) singles out the European trade in Africans as slaves as the most important factor in the quest to understand European commitment to the distortion of data relating to Africa:
The slave trade was never an affair which meant a perfectly easy conscience, and it exacted a justification; hence one made of the Negro a half-animal, an article of merchandise … The idea of the „barbarous Negro‟ is a European invention which has consequently prevailed in Europe.
The European distortion of knowledge about phenomena relating to Africa does not only arise against the backdrop of the fact that European supremacist ideas lose significance in the absence of others who can be projected as inferior; it has also resulted in the construction of knowledge about Africa that is not in tandem with the socio-political and cultural interests of African people. „The black Zimbabwean novel‟ and its criticism have not escaped the ramifications of this cultural and intellectual discomfiture. Given such a scenario, the significance of the Afrocentric approach is in the emphasis that it places on the importance of critical perspectives created by African scholars in the attempt to explain their literature and the criticism that has attended upon its growth. Thus, Afrocentricity facilitates a radical break with values that celebrate the cultural agency of one segment of humanity at the expense of the rest. This makes it a progressive intellectual approach, given that it urges the necessity “to see into and beyond appearances; to free [oneself] from the sticky grasp of „received opinions,‟ whether academic or otherwise” (Cabral, 1980: xi). Thus, the significance of the Afrocentric paradigm in the discussion of „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ is in the fact that “it prompts change in the course of our practical activity by changing the ground, the basic assumptions of our thinking about [African literature]” and its criticism. This is critical in the quest to reclaim African intellectual agency, given that the critical tools that Afrocentricity evokes are developed from the point of grounding in African culture and history.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration
Acknowledgements
Dedications
Abstract
Table of contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.0 Context and statement of purpose.
1.1 Statement of the problem
1.2 Aim of the study
1.3 Objectives
1.4 Justification of the research
1.5 Research methods
1.6 Literature review
1.7 Theoretical framework
1.8 Scope of the research.
1.9 Conclusion
1.10 Key words
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.0 Introduction
2.1. Black critics and „black critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟
2.2 Black critics and „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟
2.3 White critics and „black critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟
2.4 White critics and „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟
2.5 Continental black critics and „white critical thought‟ on African literature
2.6 Diasporan black critics and European discourse
2.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Theory, culture and history: underpinning assumptions
3.2 The Afrocentric perspective
3.3 The Postcolonial perspective
3.4 Afrocentricity and Postcoloniality: nexus and conflict of emphases
3.5 Conclusion
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
4.0 Introduction
4.1 The metacritical nature of the research
4.2 Qualitative research methods: over-arching remarks
4.3 Document analysis
4.4 Interviews and questionnaires
4.5 Conclusion
CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
5.0 Introduction
5.1 Literary-critical theoretical preferences in „white critical thought‟
5.2 The classification of black Zimbabwean authors in „white critical thought‟
5.3 The development of „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ in „white critical thought‟
5.4 Conclusion
CHAPTER 6: OBSERVATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
6.0 Introduction
6.1 Research findings
6.2 Recommendations for future research
References
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