Chamberlain Hope was certain that his new position as a tutor in African history at a teacher's college in Barbados was going to be "a piece of cake," as he put it. After all, the subject matter was familiar enough, and the scholar's enthusiasm was high.
But he quickly discovered that his students could not locate Africa on a map, that they were unfamiliar with the four directions of the compass and that their impression of Africa was simplistic at best and stereotypical at worst.
"For them, Africa was just one hot, steamy place," Hope said. "It took some effort to convince them that I had been in Africa and could teach them something about it."
Hope's first task was to rewrite the African history course syllabus, since the old one was really about the history of European relations with Africa, not the history of African societies. Most of the topics in Hope's new course plan inevitably generated controversy in his classroom. He challenged his students' notions that Egypt was not part of Africa and that Africans were solely responsible for the European slave trade because they sold their own people. When he distributed newspaper articles on the African origins of human beings, "all hell broke loose."
That teaching experience occurred in 1972, but Hope doesn't think that there has been a widespread change of attitude in Barbados' population, which is 95 percent black. "Barbadans don't think about Africa very much. Their image of the continent is limited to famine and revolution. The minority white population, which controls the economy, also controls the psychological responses of Barbadans," Hope said.
Hope, editor of the newspaper Caribbean Contact and chair of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corp., was one of over two dozen speakers who shared their insights, experiences and research at a two day conference, "Africana Studies in Africa and the Diaspora," last weekend at the Triphammer Lodge and Conference Center. Organized by Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center, the event brought together scholars from the Caribbean, South America and Africa who have each spent a term in residence at the center over the past six years.
"I've never before seen a conference with such enthusiastic discussions," said Robert L. Harris Jr., associate professor of Africana studies and principal coordinator of the program. "The issues and perspectives are resonating across continents, the scholars are finding similarities among their particular circumstances, and the discussions are energizing Africana studies internationally."
Various conference sessions treated such diverse subjects as the re-emergence of traditional African religious practices in Trinidad, the obstacles facing women writers in Kenya, the international impact of Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute, sociolinguistic developments in the Caribbean, and the status of black studies programs in the Benin Republic and Nigeria.
Participants agreed that the most significant roadblock to the establishment of strong curricula and research agendas in Africana studies abroad is inadequate funding. Shortages of textbooks and insufficient library collections, when combined with general economic hardship, often cause qualified instructors to leave countries where they are needed most.
Political leaders sometimes exacerbate difficulties by accusing scholars of elitism and questioning their usefulness especially those whose fields are hotbeds of nationalistic discord, explained Femi Osofisan, a playwright and professor of theater at Nigeria's University of Ibadan. "There is a vital historical necessity for university teachers to be active in fighting for social change," he said. "We cannot modernize our society and compete in a technological world unless we foster the growth of an educated middle class."
That entails a serious examination of national unity in Nigeria, a country of several ethnic and linguistic groups. For instance, which language should be used in a dramatic production? Which language should the national literature be written in? Most scholars are loath to tackle these issues because they have social and political repercussions attached, Osofisan noted. As a result, the discipline of Africana studies remains embryonic there.
Rupert Lewis, a political science professor at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, said that the building of Africana programs in his country is more a matter of simply coordinating existing courses and expanding offerings. "Universities need to provide courses which address their students' identities," he said. "We inherited the educational system from the British, and we are now responsible for reshaping it at all levels."