Decolonising African literary studies: Scholar critiques Western frameworks in African storytelling traditions

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.

The imposition of Western literary canons during colonialism systematically devalued African oral and written traditions, replacing them with Eurocentric models of 'literature' as individual genius. Institutions like the colonial 'tripos' exams in British Africa enforced this hierarchy, while postcolonial African universities inherited these structures. Parallels exist in Latin America, where indigenista movements fought to reclaim indigenous narrative forms, or in India, where Tagore’s critique of colonial education mirrored Oba’s concerns.

Non-Western traditions often treat storytelling as a bridge between human and non-human worlds, as in the Māori concept of *kaitiakitanga* (guardianship) or the Māori *pūrākau* (myths) that encode ecological wisdom. In contrast, Western literary criticism’s focus on authorial intent or structuralism can flatten these multidimensional narratives. The trickster figure—common in African (Anansi), Native American (Coyote), and Slavic (Veles) traditions—serves as a subversive force that exposes the absurdity of rigid interpretive frameworks.

Empirical studies in cognitive science show that oral traditions enhance memory retention and communal cohesion, challenging the Western bias toward written texts as superior knowledge carriers. Research on narrative psychology (e.g., Bruner’s work on 'narrative modes of thought') supports the idea that storytelling is a fundamental cognitive tool, not merely an aesthetic one. Yet, academic metrics like journal impact factors often prioritise Western-centric research, creating a feedback loop that marginalises alternative methodologies.

Storytelling in Africa is inseparable from ritual, healing, and ancestral connection, as seen in the Yoruba *àṣẹ* (sacred authority of the word) or the Dagara people’s use of storytelling to commune with the spirit world. Western literary criticism’s secularisation of narrative strips it of its spiritual potency, reducing it to mere 'content' for analysis. Artists like Ben Okri or Wole Soyinka have explored these dimensions, arguing that African literature must be read as both art and sacred text.

Decolonising literary studies could involve co-creating curricula with African communities, integrating oral archives into digital repositories, and funding African-led journals that centre indigenous epistemologies. Scenario planning suggests that universities adopting 'epistemic justice' frameworks (e.g., Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ work) would see a 30-50% increase in citations of African scholarship within a decade. However, resistance from legacy publishers and tenure committees may slow this transition.

Women storytellers in Africa, such as the *griot* traditions of Senegal or the *mbira* poets of Zimbabwe, have been sidelined by patriarchal academic structures that privilege male-authored texts. Rural communities, whose oral traditions are often dismissed as 'folklore,' are excluded from both the production and consumption of literary knowledge. The diaspora’s role—e.g., African-Caribbean scholars like Kamau Brathwaite—is also underacknowledged in mainstream narratives about African literature.

The trickster figure here is the academic canon itself, which masquerades as neutral while enforcing its own rules—much like Erasmus’ *Praise of Folly* or Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, where solemnity is exposed as a performance. Anansi, the West African trickster spider, embodies this by outwitting oppressive systems through cunning and subversion, a metaphor for how African scholars might dismantle Western frameworks. The absurdity lies in the fact that the tools used to 'study' African storytelling were never designed to accommodate it.