Maasai perspectives on modernity: narratives of evolution, nature and culture

IF 1.3 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY
Van Wijngaarden
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

The narrative of evolutionist modernity is a former scientific theory which has fuelled and legitimized deeply harmful imperialist hierarchies, but increasingly influences how Maasai make sense of modernity. Borrowing from narratology and building on twelve years of intermittent ethnography in East-African Maasailand, I respond to recent calls for cognitive justice. Firstly, I contribute to insight in how Maasai, as Indigenous Southern people, conceptualize key scientific concepts such as modernity, as to further the availability of their understandings as partners in the dialogue of theory building. I especially regard continuities and shifts in their uses of nature/culture and Culture/culture dichotomies. Secondly, I disclose, question and deconstruct the continued centralization of Eurocentric narratives and modernist assumptions in academic sense-making, as this unreflexively denies the gradual difference and continued entanglements of scientific, ex-scientific and non-scientific narratives, and the need to include Southern experiences and knowledges to make science a truly global knowledge system.
马赛人对现代性的看法:进化、自然和文化的叙述
进化主义现代性的叙述是一种以前的科学理论,它助长并合法化了极其有害的帝国主义等级制度,但越来越多地影响马赛人如何理解现代性。借用叙事学的知识,并以东非马塞兰12年来断断续续的民族志为基础,我回应了最近对认知正义的呼吁。首先,我对马赛人作为南方土著人民如何概念化现代性等关键科学概念的见解做出了贡献,以促进他们作为理论建设对话伙伴的理解的可用性。我特别关注他们使用自然/文化和文化/文化二分法的连续性和转变。其次,我揭露、质疑和解构了欧洲中心叙事和现代主义假设在学术意义建构中的持续集中,因为这不加思索地否认了科学、前科学和非科学叙事的逐渐差异和持续纠缠,以及将南方经验和知识纳入其中以使科学成为真正的全球知识体系的必要性。
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来源期刊
Critical African Studies
Critical African Studies Arts and Humanities-Arts and Humanities (all)
CiteScore
3.00
自引率
0.00%
发文量
19
期刊介绍: Critical African Studies seeks to return Africanist scholarship to the heart of theoretical innovation within each of its constituent disciplines, including Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, History, Law and Economics. We offer authors a more flexible publishing platform than other journals, allowing them greater space to develop empirical discussions alongside theoretical and conceptual engagements. We aim to publish scholarly articles that offer both innovative empirical contributions, grounded in original fieldwork, and also innovative theoretical engagements. This speaks to our broader intention to promote the deployment of thorough empirical work for the purposes of sophisticated theoretical innovation. We invite contributions that meet the aims of the journal, including special issue proposals that offer fresh empirical and theoretical insights into African Studies debates.
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