POSTCOLONIAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN AFRICA: DECOLONIZATION, KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND CONTRADICTORY IDENTITIES

Abstract

A major motivation for this study is the urgent need to experiment, operationalize, and compare the myths and realities around the struggles and reactions of Africans and scholars against colonialism. A strong contradiction presently exists about “decolonizing” the “colonized” Africa and its epistemological knowledge base, which is evident in artistic expressions, literature, and performance scholarship. Previous postcolonial studies have not paid adequate attention to this contradiction as a major requirement for understanding Africa and (re)-connecting it with its current realities in the context of culture, art, language, and identity. Therefore, this study investigates the “decolonizing process” in “postcolonial” theoretical contexts, thereby identifying the traits of split identity in Africa and African diaspora cultures. It also observes the multiplicity of cultural contexts competing for the ownership of today’s hybridized African space. Hinging on key comparative post-colonial conceptions by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, on the one hand, and Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, on the other hand, as theoretical frameworks, the study explores the connections between the cultural politics of knowledge production and the psychology of post-colonialism. While using an anthropological research design, with a study population that includes participants in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and other diasporas, the study employs In-Depth and Key Informant interviews (IDI and KII) as methods of data collection. Through content analysis, the findings reveal, conclusively, that the African culture is still evolving as a hybrid of multiple identities traceable to recent theoretical fallouts of African and African diaspora studies.