African historiography in the context of "UNESCO"

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⭐ Core Definition: African historiography

African historiography is a branch of historiography involving the study of the theories, methods, sources, and interpretations used by scholars to construct histories of Africa. Most African societies recorded their history via oral tradition, resulting in a lack of written records documenting events before European colonialism. African historiography has therefore lent itself to contemporary methods of historiographical study, the utilisation of oral sources, and the incorporation of evidence derived from various auxiliary disciplines, differentiating it from other continental areas of historiography due to its multidisciplinary nature.

Oral historians utilised various sources from their communities in crafting socially-consolidated histories which were then passed down through generations, with traditions serving as contemporary documents of messages from the past. Early written history about Africa was largely undertaken by outsiders, each of which had their own biases. Colonial historiography was Eurocentric and propagated racist theories such as the Hamitic hypothesis. African historiography became organised in the mid-20th century, and initially involved the refutation of colonial narratives. Nationalist histories sought to generate patriotism and sustain the multi-ethnic nation states, and African historiography saw a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach alongside archaeology and historical linguistics. Following growing pessimism about the fate of the continent, Marxist thought became popular, and contributed to a more critical study of colonialism. From 1981 UNESCO began publishing the General History of Africa, edited by specialists from across the continent. The 1980s saw universities struggle amid economic and political crises, resulting in the migration of many scholars (largely to the United States), and the discipline remains critically underfunded. Historians of Africa in the 21st century focus more on contemporary history than precolonial history, and are less ideological than their predecessors as the discipline has taken on a more pluralist form.

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African historiography in the context of Historiography

Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term historiography is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic by using particular sources, techniques of research, and theoretical approaches to the interpretation of documentary sources. Scholars discuss historiography by topic—such as the historiography of the United Kingdom, of WWII, of the pre-Columbian Americas, of early Islam, and of China—and different approaches to the work and the genres of history, such as political history and social history. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the development of academic history produced a great corpus of historiographic literature. The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties—such as to their nation state—remains a debated question.

In Europe, the academic discipline of historiography was established in the 5th century BC with the Histories, by Herodotus, who thus established Greek historiography. In the 2nd century BC, the Roman statesman Cato the Elder produced the Origines, which is the first Roman historiography. In Asia, the father and son intellectuals Sima Tan and Sima Qian established Chinese historiography with the book Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), in the time of the Han Empire in Ancient China. During the Middle Ages, medieval historiography included the works of chronicles in medieval Europe, the Ethiopian Empire in the Horn of Africa, Islamic histories by Muslim historians, and the Korean and Japanese historical writings based on the existing Chinese model. During the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, historiography in the Western world was shaped and developed by figures such as Voltaire, David Hume, and Edward Gibbon, who among others set the foundations for the modern discipline. In the 19th century, historical studies became professionalized at universities and research centers along with a belief that history was like a science. In the 20th century, historians incorporated social science dimensions like politics, economy, and culture in their historiography.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Historiography ← Historiographical ← History of history ← Historiographic ← Historiographer ← Ancient historian ← Historical context ← Historiographies
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Historiography → History of Africa → Oral tradition → European colonization of Africa → Auxiliary sciences of history → List of oral repositories → Eurocentric → Hamitic hypothesis → African nationalism → Nation state → African archaeology → Historical linguistics → Afro-pessimism (Africa) → Marxist historiography → UNESCO → General History of Africa →