Decolonising African literary studies: Scholar critiques Western frameworks in African storytelling traditions
Original framing: “Nigerian scholar urges Africa to rethink storytelling” — bing news
African storytelling traditions are rooted in communal epistemologies that prioritise collective memory, oral performance, and ecological embeddedness—concepts like Ubuntu ('I am because we are') or the Akan concept of *Sankofa* ('return and get it') exemplify this. Western literary frameworks, which often treat texts as static objects, fail to engage with these dynamic, participatory modes of knowledge. Indigenous scholars like Molefi Kete Asante have long argued for Afrocentric approaches that centre African agency in narrative production.
Dr. Oba’s call to rethink African storytelling is a microcosm of a global crisis in knowledge production, where Western academic institutions have long treated African epistemologies as peripheral or exotic.
The systemic roots of this issue trace back to colonial education systems that equated 'literature' with Eurocentric texts, a legacy now reinforced by citation cartels, funding disparities, and tenure structures that reward conformity over innovation. Cross-culturally, this mirrors patterns in Indigenous Australian, Native American, and Latin American contexts, where oral traditions were similarly sidelined in favour of written canons. The solution lies not in incremental reform but in dismantling the gatekeeping mechanisms of academia—through co-designed curricula, decolonised metrics, and digital repatriation—while centring the voices of those who have historically been silenced. The trickster’s lesson here is clear: the absurdity of clinging to these frameworks is the first step toward their undoing, and the future of literary studies depends on embracing multiplicity rather than uniformity.